


Moments In Between

by Askeebe



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Action/Adventure, Character Death, Complete, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Political Thriller, Romance, Slowmance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-02-13 11:47:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 56
Words: 279,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2149635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askeebe/pseuds/Askeebe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We all know the story of Mass Effect, but what about the moments we don't see?  What are those special moments that transform strangers into friends, family and lovers?  Some are quiet, some are tumultuous, and some break our hearts.  Starts directly after Thane's recruitment mission and goes through the ending of Mass Effect 2.  Mostly canon, but with a few AU moments and building to an AU for Mass Effect 3, although several elements of ME3 will still be there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nothing Is Ever Simple

**Author's Note:**

> My first serious attempt at writing fiction in probably twenty or more years. Please, please comment if you find something, either good or bad. I'd like to improve, and I'd like to know what resonated with readers and what didn't fit. Thank you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You would think things would go smoothly after Thane accepts Shepard's recruitment offer in Nassana's office, but things are never simple for the Normandy's crew.

Nassana Dantius’ body lay cooling on her desk in her not-so-secure private office as Shepard headed down through the empty office tower with her squad and her newest recruit, assassin Thane Krios, in tow. Garrus was still pointedly staring at the drell and his hand hovered close to his Phalanx pistol as if to emphasize his distrust of their newest specialist. Jack seemed more interested in checking out the drell’s elaborate leather coat, or maybe she was checking out the man inhabiting the coat. Even though he was alien, as soon as the adrenaline wore off, Shepard had taken note of what Thane really looked like and was startled to realize that she considered him attractive, even if he was an alien. Maybe it was because of the way he moved, she mused.. As they went down the elevator, she looked at Thane in the reflection of the polished elevator doors. Well-built, lean, sharp features on his face, those disconcertingly large, black eyes with a hint of green in them. From his movements, she could tell he weighed much more than a similarly built human and also remembered that drell had denser muscle tissue. For all that, he was unbelievably light and quick on his feet. She thought back to the way he dropped from the air shaft and dispatched Nassana’s three guards and the woman herself in seven seconds flat. Coming back to herself, she realized she was still staring at Thane in the reflection, and he was looking back.

“Come on, kids. Let’s head back to the Normandy and get our newest recruit settled in. Thane, do you want to stop and pick up anything first.”

He nodded. “Since this will be a long term mission, I will need to gather my weapons and a few personal effects. If you give me the docking bay number, I can meet you there.”

“Pfft. Nonsense. It’ll go faster if we help transport your things.”

“Forget it, Shepard. I’m no pack mule,” Jack interjected. Garrus said nothing, but kept staring intently at the drell.

She could see Thane’s hesitation and was about to cajole him further when he nodded. “Very well. I doubt I will need to return to this location again. Your help would be most welcome.”

“What’s the matter,” Garrus drawled. “Don’t want to show off your bolthole?”

Thane was unruffled by the turian’s provocative tone. “An assassin who is not very careful about covering his tracks is one with a very short lifespan. Old habits die hard. But come. It’s on the far side of the city.”

“Uh uh. I got better things to do than haul luggage across Nos Astra. I’m outta here, Shepard.” Jack tossed her a desultory salute and headed down the street. “Catch you back on the Normandy later. Think I’ll go explore the local nightlife for a while.”

Shepard shrugged. “We lift at 0500 local time tomorrow, Jack. Be on board.” Jack was already walking away and waved a hand halfheartedly. “Well, gentlemen, shall we?”

Thane led them through Nos Astra via automated taxi and subway before resorting to foot travel. By then, they were in the obvious slums of the city. Thane’s path twisted around multiple times, even going through abandoned buildings, until Shepard was lost and would have had to rely on her omni-tool to get back to the spaceport. Just as she realized they had come in an elaborate circle around a run down tenement, Thane stopped. He spent several seconds looking up and down the surrounding streets. “It’s unusually quiet for this time of day,” he noted.

“Good time to be sleeping off last night’s bender for most of the inhabitants here,” Garrus noted.

Thane made a noncommittal noise that might have been agreement as he looked around again. Shepard looked around as well, but didn’t see anything out the ordinary. Still, if those two were wary, she would be as well. She waited patiently while Thane finished his surveillance, but was caught off guard when he suddenly walked across the street. Her lips thinned in a frown as she realized he wasn’t used to working with a team. She’d have to bring him up to speed quickly if he was going to be an effective member of her squad. For now, she ceded him the point position as she fell back with Garrus and watched their surroundings.

Thane led them through a decrepit lobby. It seemed that no matter what the world or what the species, slums always smelled like piss and alcohol. This one was no different. Mixed in with it, though, was another scent, one very familiar to all three of them: blood and the ozone scent of recent biotic use. Without a word, all three of them pulled their weapons.

“Talk to me, Thane. Do you know what’s going on?”

“No, Shepard. Too many possibilities. Could be a gang fight. Could also be mercs who managed to finally track me down. Could be mercs after someone else here.”

Shepard and Garrus grinned at each other. “Gangs and mercs...my two favorite excuses for a fight. Well, sounds like we’ll get a chance to work as a team sooner than I expected,” she told him. “Garrus always has my right. You stay on my left. Other than that, stay alive and wipe ‘em out.” With that, she activated her tech armor and shouldered past Thane into the lead, using her omni-tool to scan for life signs.

Garrus chuckled as he told Thane, “Watch out for her fireworks, too. She makes a great diversion. They’re all so busy watching her, makes it easy to pick them off.” He turned serious. “Just make sure you watch her flank. I’m not losing her to an untried crew member who only looks after himself. Clear?”

Thane measured the intense stare of the turian before nodding solemnly. “Quite. You need have no fears on account of me.”

“Better not,” Garrus muttered as he checked his rifle scope. “Now let’s go clean up this charming little bit of scumland.” He looked back up at Thane, or rather where the assassin had been and harrumphed. He had already melted out of sight into the dark recesses of the lobby. It took Garrus a couple of seconds to determine the most likely hiding places and he finally caught a glimpse of the drell’s leather coat in the morning sun shining through the dirt encrusted front doors. Then he focused his attention back on Shepard as she approached the deserted circular lobby desk

In her typical brand of bravado, she yelled out, “Come on out. I know you’re in there. If you’re unarmed, come out slowly and you’ll be fine. If you’re armed, head out the back if you want to live past the next five minutes. She had her Shuriken SMG out and aimed at a door opposite her across the desk. Her tech armor formed a glimmering orange outline floating over her hard suit, which was still gleaming white even after their long firefight through Dantius towers just a few hours ago.

Seconds passed like minutes as they waited, with Shepard getting more tense as they rolled past. She couldn’t leave a potential enemy behind them, and if was mercs, they knew they had the upper hand. They could wait until she was forced to open the door, then lay into her with a hailstorm of ammo. Unfortunately, she couldn’t ethically blow the door open in case it was a bunch of terrified people hiding back there. With a final check of her armor, she nodded to Garrus, glanced over the lobby looking for Thane, then sidled up to the door. The building was so old, it actually had a door knob and some sort of fiber composite door instead of an electronic lock and sliding door mechanism. “Here’s hoping it’s the non-lethal option,” she muttered to herself as she reached out to turn the knob.

With a quick twist, she opened the door and shoved it back into the room. That was the signal for all hell to break loose. Shepard caught a glimpse of Eclipse armor before she dove to the side and scrambled for the dubious cover of the lobby desk. The mercs were laying down enough ammo to make the doorway and surrounding area an absolute kill zone, but at the same time, they were constrained to that one area. Shepard reached down and grabbed her last inferno grenade from her belt and tossed it in the room. She counted silently as she stuck her SMG over the counter and fired blindly at the door, more in the hope of keeping the mercs confined than in hitting anything. She distantly heard the whomp of Garrus’ rifle.

“Three...four!” A tremendous explosion followed by a gout of flame bellowed out from the doorway. Shepard took advantage of the explosion to roll out from behind the desk and unload her SMG on full auto into the room. Due to the blaze, she couldn't make out any lifesigns either visually or through infrared, but given that they were armored, she doubted the grenade actually took out any of them. She was counting on the fire damaging their armor enough that the hail of bullets from her team would finish the job on most of them. She fired two entire clips into the room, disregarding the return fire and counting on the two layers of armor to protect her. It was only when the flames died down and her tech armor whined in warning that she darted to the side to seek shelter and let her armor recharge while she reloaded.

Garrus was behind some crates that had been piled haphazardly against the side wall firing at someone on the second floor balcony. A bullet zinged by Shepard's head and buried itself in the wall beside her showering her with plaster dust. She sighted along the bullet's return path just in time to see an Eclipse Vanguard's head rock to the side from an exquisitely placed headshot. Quick mental triangulation determined that it was Thane who’d put the merc down, and that let her backtrack the assassin’s general position. He was on her left, covering her flank as she’d ordered. She dismissed any further worry for him and returned her attention to the mercs remaining in front of her. She finally got a visual and counted five more mercs returning fire. They were hiding behind some crates in the room, which seemed to be a decrepit restaurant.

“Dropped one!” Garrus crowed on their comm as another Vanguard flew backward from the force of his sniper rifle. Shepard was regretting that they hadn’t fitted Thane with a comm. It was understandable; after all, they’d only recruited him an hour earlier, and she wasn’t in the habit of carrying spare communicator sets with her on missions. It was a habit she vowed to change next time out. “Engineer, Shepard,” Garrus warned her. He knew of her deep and abiding hatred for them and their turrets.

“Crap. Cover me,” she ordered as she broke from cover and ran to face into the room. She winced automatically as the Eclipse mercs fired and her armor whined, but she didn’t let it distract her from powering up a throw that sent both engineer and partially erected turret flying hard into the wobbly dining furniture. She followed it up with bursts from her SMG to make sure the engineer stayed down. Garrus was firing over her shoulder to keep the rest of the mercs behind cover and reduce their firing rate. Even so, her tech armor whining ratcheted up to overload. She fired her last clip just as her armor overloaded, then sprinted back to the lobby desk. It was so full of holes now that it barely qualified as any sort of cover, but it afforded just enough protection for her to recharge her armor and swap out thermal clips. This was the last clip she had on her, and she hadn’t had a chance to pick up anymore from the downed Eclipse mercs. Well, good thing she wasn’t limited to just guns for offense.

The old hotel was severely short on high powered electronics that she could overload and use against the enemy, but she still had plenty of biotic power. Adrenaline was coursing through her body, making her nerves sing with the thrill of battle. Shepard tapped into that energy and threw a crate across the room at an asari Vanguard taking cover behind another crate, sending the merc crashing into the wall with a dull thud. She immediately followed it up with a warp to strip the asari of her biotic barriers. As soon as the barrier was weakened, Garrus fired a concussive shot to collapse it. Shepard readied another throw to try and crush the asari, but before she could channel the energy, the asari’s head snapped backward with a perfect hole between her eyes. Shepard couldn’t help the smile that crossed her face. Thane was as good as she’d hoped. Even without a comm, he was following her tactics and assisting them in the firefight.

Round after round was impacting her armor, coming from two remaining Eclipse troopers trapped in the dining room with her. Still grinning, she stayed in the open as she scooped up a thermal clip from a downed merc and brought her SMG to bear on them. She charged them and slid over the crates they were using as cover just as her tech armor reached overload again. This time, she had targets. The armor flared and pulsed as it discharged, staggering the troopers and knocking one of them onto his back. She fired her last burst at the downed trooper then dropped her weapon to extend blades from each omni tool, using the left one to block his weapon and knock it sideways as she punched through his armor and into his torso. He stiffened, and Shepard drew back to stab him again. As he went down, she turned to take care of the last trooper lying on the floor, but she started in surprise as she saw Thane standing beside her and firing the finishing shot. Damn, he moves fast, she thought as she started scavenging thermal clips and credits from the Eclipse mercenaries.

“Any more out there?” she asked.

“Negative, Shepard. Lobby is clear,” Garrus announced over the comm at the same time as Thane shook his head. “There was a group on the balcony,” he stated blandly, leaving the obvious unsaid.

Shepard stood up and finished shoving spare thermal clips into her belt. “Alright then, let’s finish up what we came here to do. Lead on, Thane.”

Without a word, the green assassin turned and led them up the stairs. Still on high alert from the firefight, they ascended six flights in the dimly lit concrete and steel stairwell that was littered with trash and other things that shouldn’t be scrutinized too closely. The hallway they stepped into was covered in an ancient, filthy carpet, and only half the overhead lights were working. Thane led them to a door at the end of the hallway, to a corner apartment. Unsurprisingly, when she thought about it, the lights at this end of the hallway were out. Thane studied the door for a moment, looking for some sort of sign that it was still safe to go in, Shepard presumed. It looked very insecure, a simple wooden door with an ancient lock and key system. No need to hack the door; one good kick would knock it in. Shepard was surprised when Thane simply turned the knob, not even bothering with a key. “No lock?”

Thane stepped back, letting her see a second door set a couple feet inside the apartment hallway. This one was exactly what she would have expected from him. A sophisticated, and very sturdy, metal door with a complex electronic lock complete with biometric scanners stood in their way. “Clever,” Garrus commented.

Thane hummed something that might have been a pleased acknowledgement as he keyed in his access code. The second door opened, and he gestured for Shepard and Garrus to enter before him.

The contrast between the shabby hallway and the polished apartment were astonishing. Shepard unconsciously paused just inside the main living space as she looked around. The mid-morning sun flooded the room with a honey golden light that made the polished wood floors gleam warmly. There was a mini kitchen to the side, not much upgraded from what came with the place, but sparkling clean and with a single porcelain mug sitting on the counter. There was no couch or chairs as such, but there were numerous low cushions and pillows scattered on some sort of woven reed mats. There was a low table made of reddish wood underneath the windows, and on it rested a foot high pyramidal structure that was intricately carved into whorls and curves that reminded her of waves surging and crashing. At the bottom, a pearly upturned crescent was inlaid into the wood with a large pearl cradled in its curve. Looking around, Shepard could see a small bedroom through an open door. At the back of the apartment a set of dimly glowing and translucent shelves held Thane’s weapons. The way they were displayed turned them into works of art as much as tools of death. The effect of the place was spartan, yet still warm and comforting. There was no clutter, nothing out of place, yet everywhere she looked, there was a focal point: the pyramid artwork in the living space, some abstract paintings along the kitchen wall, the guns and knives in the back. Slowly she became aware of a faint and unusual spicy scent that permeated the room and wondered if it was from the food he ate or something uniquely drell.

Garrus had gravitated toward the guns and was appraising them professionally. He didn’t say anything, but Shepard could tell he was impressed. One would expect the galaxy’s best assassin to have only the best weapons, she thought. Turning further, she saw Thane still standing at the apartment entrance, watching them as they examined his living space. It suddenly struck her that they were probably the first people he had ever allowed into his private sanctum. She looked around the apartment again. Thane would have no reason to impress anyone. Everything in here was solely for his benefit. She realized she was looking at his inner soul, exposed. She looked back at Thane to see if she could read anything in his expression, but his face was calm and composed, giving no hint as to if he was discomfited by the sudden presence of strangers in his home. Or if he was, she was unable to read it from his alien drell features.

Suddenly, she felt awkward, as if she were intruding into something best left private. Grasping for something to say, she gestured at the pyramid and asked, “What’s this?”

Thane walked over and delicately traced his finger from the top point to the bottom corner. “It is a symbol of Arashu, one of the old gods of my people. She is the goddess of life and birth and protection.

“A strange patron for an assassin.”

“We are all born, and we all need protection at some point. Now it is my turn to provide that protection for others in her name,” he answered.

Shepard thought back to the salarian workers he had sealed into the utility closets for their own protection. “Do you always take such care to protect the innocents on your assignments?”

Thane looked out the window and clasped his hands behind his back. “I do. There is no skill in indiscriminate slaughter. There is less honor in such. I am a weapon, finely honed to perform one task. To cause pain and suffering where there is no cause would be...dishonorable.”

Shepard turned her gaze out the window to the skyscrapers of Nos Astra and thought back on her career. She certainly couldn’t say that she’d been as careful as Thane in her past. No, there was definitely innocent blood on her hands. Hundreds had died on the Citadel alone during Sovereign’s attack, yet she was still hailed as a hero. There had been others in her past, when she’d been more concerned with getting the job done than the collateral damage. But Thane, who only killed those who deserved death and took care to protect the innocents was named assassin, had to work in darkness and secrecy, hunted by both law and criminals alike. It was a comparison that didn’t make sense and made her vaguely uncomfortable.. She frowned and forced the thought away. “How much do you need to take?” she asked, once again all business. It was time to wrap up and get back to the Normandy, the only place left in the galaxy where she felt safe and comfortable, even it carried a constant subtext of threat from Cerberus. Suppressing a sigh from the constant stress, she looked at her newest recruit.

“Not much. My weapons, clothing, a few personal items. If you will excuse me?” He bowed slightly and turned to walk into the bedroom.

Shepard wandered over to Garrus. “So, whatcha think?”

Garrus ducked his head in a turian equivalent of a shrug. “So far, he lives up to expectations. It’ll be good to have someone with his skill set on board.”

Shepard cocked an eyebrow. “Really? I don’t envision us actually trying to assassinate any Collectors.”

He chuckled. “Just because your preferred style of fighting is like a klixen in a dance club doesn’t mean there aren’t other more...sophisticated options.”

Shepard mock growled at him and kicked at a taloned foot, which he predictably shifted out of the way.

He continued in a more serious tone. “You’re making enemies, Shepard. Not all of them will be willing to face you in combat. Some are going to want to take the easy route and just snipe you from a catwalk. With Thane along, maybe he can see the dangers we don’t. Besides, we’re going to need all the help, and firepower, we can get.”

“Well aren’t you Mr. Sunshine and Roses.” She slumped against the wall and crossed her arms over her chest as she glared out at the morning sun.

“Just telling it like I see it, Shepard.”

“Sometimes this seems like an impossible task, Garrus. We haven’t even struck a single blow against the Collectors since Horizon, and even then, I wouldn’t say we had a decisive victory. We stopped them from taking a few of the colonists, but now I not only have to worry about saving the galaxy, but dealing with various pissant merc groups.”

“Hey. You’re the only person in the galaxy to have defeated a Reaper. Those things thought they were invincible, and you showed them and us that they weren’t. They’ve got weaknesses, just like any living thing. And if there’s anyone who can convince the galaxy to stand together against these things, it’s you.”

“I know, Garrus. I’ll drag the Council along kicking and screaming if I have to, but I’m going to knock some sense into their heads. It’s just that I really don’t need these petty thugs on top of everything else.”

“Hopefully, our new recruit will be able to tap into whatever shadow network assassins use to set up targets and let us know if you ever get a contract.”

Shepard glanced toward Thane’s bedroom. “I thought you didn’t like him. Why the sudden reliance on his access to resources we don’t even know exist?”

“I never said I didn’t like him. I don’t trust him. Not yet. It’s not like assassins are a common career path in the Hierarchy. He did well downstairs, and he’s got a nice set up here. I’m a little worried about his death wish, though.”

Shepard shook her head. “It’s not a death wish. He doesn’t want to die. He’s just accepted that it’s coming soon. There’s a difference, Garrus.” She paused and bit her next words off, unsaid. I know how he feels, she thought. But she didn’t want to shake Garrus’ confidence in her. “Hey, instead of standing around like warts on a krogan, let’s see if we can help him pack. We can get him settled and maybe take in some of the nightlife in Nos Astra before we head out again. Maybe we can even pry Liara out of her office for a few drinks tonight.”

“You’re on, Shepard.”

 

* * *

 

Two hours later, Shepard stepped out of her shower drying her hair. It felt good to finally get the battle grime off after that all-night fight through Dantius towers, then the mercs at Thane’s place. She wrapped her towel around herself then laid down on the bed. It had been a long night, and she could do with a nap before heading back into Nos Astra with Garrus later this evening. Jack was still MIA, but she wasn’t worried. Jack would show up just before lift off, as usual. She had Thane settled into Life Support. Later, after her nap, she’d show him around the Normandy and introduce him to the crew. Jacob’s attitude toward the assassin bothered her, but she’d deal with it later. Everything in the entire galaxy could wait until later at this point.

She could feel sleep stealing up on her, and she gratefully gave herself over to it. She rarely allowed herself naps, because she had enough trouble sleeping at night, but today she’d give in. As sleep pulled her under, she found herself thinking again about the handsome drell residing on the crew deck. He was intriguing. What was that saying? A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Something like that. He seemed so different from the rest of her crew of crazies and misfits. She hoped he’d fit in. Her last coherent thought was that she would like to unwrap the mystery and find out who he really was.

Sleep finally claimed her. For once, it was merciful and instead of nightmares of suffocating, she dreamt perfectly normal random dreams, but with occasional tantalizing glimpses of an enigmatic green drell always just a few steps ahead. Her lips curved up in a gentle smile at the thrill of her dream chase.

* * *

A/N: I wanted to explore the parts of the Mass Effect story that weren’t in the game. Why do the characters act the way they do? What do they do on downtime between missions? What do they say and do that make them into friends and lovers? So it’s only with the rare exception that I will take scenes directly from the game, partly because we’ve seen them over and over, and there are other authors who’ve narrated them quite well. I didn’t see any point in rehashing those scenes further.

In addition, there will be scenes in here to set up for a continuation of the story past the suicide mission. I will say here and now that I disliked a good deal of Mass Effect 3 and despised the ending. The DLC they put out didn’t fix anything for me. Plus, I can’t forgive them for their treatment of Thane in ME3. So I sat down to figure out another plausible ending for the Mass Effect story, and to do that, I needed to insert some other scenes, other races taking action, other things happening away from the Normandy and her crew that will be relevant much later on.

A good deal is written already, and the story mostly plotted out, but this will be a long story, and I’m a mom with a full time professional job and a lot of other things going on. So it will be a slow story. Hopefully, if it’s decent, it’ll get some good reviews and that will spur me to write faster.

Thanks and enjoy.


	2. Tete a Tete

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thane tries to understand the enigma that is Commander Shepard.

“May I come in?”

“Of course, Commander.  What may I do for you?”  Thane’s voice was low and rough, but at the same time, pleasing to the ear.  He rose from the table where he had been staring out at the drive core and walked to the entrance to the Life Support room.  The commander stood just inside the entrance, holding a box with a picture of an Alliance cruiser on the side.  
  
“Well, ah, actually, I was hoping to impose on you for a while.”  This wasn’t the same commander who had bantered with Nassana Dantius after slaughtering her way through waves of mercs just to reach him, to make sure he stayed alive just so she could recruit him.  For one, she was wearing a black and white jumpsuit with short sleeves instead of a brilliant white and red hardsuit with weapons bristling off of it.  His eyes swept over her form and noted that she wasn’t even carrying a pistol.  He relaxed slightly in recognition of the security she felt on the Normandy.  His weapons might be safely stowed in the display case, but he always had his knives on his person.  He hadn't gone unarmed since he was a child, and certainly until he knew the Normandy and her crew better, he would stay alert for any potential problems.

She continued, “I wanted a chance to get to know my newest squad member a little better.  The dossier I have on you is about a tenth of what I have on the others.  So far, I know that you are called the greatest assassin in the galaxy, you go out of your way to protect innocent bystanders, and you pray for forgiveness after a job has been completed.  Not what I expected of an assassin.”  She lingered in the doorway, giving him an appraising look.

He lifted the box out of her hands and carried it to the table.  “I’m honored that you would seek my company.  I admit that I have been wanting a chance to talk to you as well.”  He deflected her unasked questions in favor of trying to learn more about his new employers.

“Oh really?  What about?”  She followed him into Life Support and glanced around.  It had only been a day, but the crew had cleaned up the room that had been half storage and now it was a neat and sparse living space.  A small cot, a table with two chairs, some storage lockers, and a beautiful collection of weapons on display.  These weren’t just for show either.  Even from a distance, she could see the marks of usage as well as the sheen that indicated a well cared for piece of equipment.

“For one, I admit to a curiosity about the woman behind the legend.  And to the reasons behind our mission.”

Shepard had walked over to his weapon display and was looking at his sniper rifle.  Now she turned around with a frown creasing her forehead.  “We have to stop the Collectors.  We have to find out why they’re abducting human colonies, where they’re hiding, and stop them.  Somehow.  I don’t have all the pieces yet, but I will, and we will stop them if I have to personally kill each and every one of the bastards!”  She drew a breath and turned back to the display.

Thane rumbled his appreciation of her spirit, although he doubted she could hear it.  “No, Commander.  I was talking about the ones funding your mission.”  He waved a hand to indicate the entirety of the Normandy.  “This ship...it’s not Alliance.  But you are.  The savior of the Citadel.  The first human Spectre.  Missing in action for two years.  Rumors of your death, and yet you show up on Illium leading a crew comprised of the most highly skilled operatives in their field in the galaxy.  I accepted your contract, Commander, and I will follow through.  But I research all my contracts, and this one has many...contradictions.”

That got a laugh from her.  “I like that.  Contradictions.  Fits my life perfectly right now.”  She traced the outline of his Viper sniper rifle, her fingers ghosting along the outline of the trigger, but she didn’t actually touch the weapon.  Thane appreciated that.  Few people realized how personal a weapon could be, but then again, given who she was, maybe he shouldn’t be surprised.

She turned away from the display and pulled out the chair opposite where Thane had been sitting.  “Nice rifle.  The best.  Not that I’m at all surprised, given your occupation.”  Her unconscious echo of his thoughts startled Thane.  He wondered if she was better at reading body language than he had originally thought.  “Tell you what,” she offered.  “You tell me a little about yourself, and I’ll help you answer those contradictions of yours.  I like to know my crew as much as you want to know about your contracts.”  The smile she gave him was brief but warm before she bent her head to open the box.  
  
“As you wish,” he rumbled.  He sat down opposite her and picked up the lid to the box.  It had a picture of an Alliance cruiser on it.  The bottom of the box was in Shepard’s hands.  He could see numerous tiny gray parts resting on the bottom, forming a bed for a partially assembled model.  “A hobby of yours?” he asked as he gestured toward the model.  

“Not really.”  Another soft laugh.  “At least, not til now.  For some reason, Cerberus designed a display wall in my cabin and someone put a model of the Normandy in there.  When I stopped by the Citadel, I saw a couple of models and figured I’d try my hand at putting them together.  There’s not much room for hobbies onboard ship, and this gives me something to do with my hands while I’m thinking.  Found this one on Illium while I was looking for you, actually.  Didn’t need nearly as much gunfire to acquire this little guy as I did for you, though.”

She pulled the model out and set it in the middle of the table, then started sorting through the pieces in the bottom of the box, looking for something in particular.  “What about you?  Any hobbies?  What do you do between contracts?”

Thane reached out and picked up his cup.  “I travel.  I observe.”  He paused.  “Much like you, I have no space in my life for material goods.  I like to know what motivates people, why they act as they do.  Why are some driven by greed to destroy lives?  Why are others, like you, driven to save them?  We, all of us, have free will.  What twist of fate sets a person on one path instead of another?”  He looked up from his cup to see Shepard staring at him with eyebrows raised.  “You are surprised?”

“It’s a lot deeper than I was expecting.  I was thinking you might admit to a fondness for adventure novels or that you’re a chess master.”  She went back to rummaging through the box.  “Free will, eh?  Okay, I’ll bite.  Free will’s only part of the equation.  Who you are, who you’ll be are determined in large part by where you are.  Even going beyond the obvious things like being born a krogan or asari, you’re a product of your parents and your environment.  A child’s personality is largely set by the time they’re five...er, at least for humans.  And the child has zero say in how they’re raised for those five years.  Hell, most kids can’t even remember their life before five.  You can treat them like an angel, or you can beat them every day, and that’s going to have a serious effect on their personality..  So I say that free will has some stiff competition.”

 

“I would say that external events can influence a child well beyond the age of five, or the appropriate species equivalent,” Thane said, surprising her with his agreement.  “But still, there is that spark in each individual where they can stand up and say ‘this is what I choose, no matter what I’ve been told before.’  That is what interests me.  Why would a thief forego stealing from a soldier?  Why would a mother walk past a crying child on the street?  Why would a business woman decide the best course of action is to kill her own employees?”  He paused and looked directly at her with those deep, enigmatic eyes.  “Why would a decorated soldier decide to work with a known terrorist organization?”

There was a long pause while Shepard considered her answer.  Thane took a drink from his cup and waited patiently.  “Because circumstances left me with no alternatives,” she finally said.

“There are always choices.”

“But only one optimal choice, by definition.”

“What were the circumstances that left you no other choice than to collaborate with a human terrorist organization?” he asked softly.

This time there was an even longer pause while she fitted some engine pieces together.  “The Council wouldn’t listen to me.  I told them about the Reaper threat, but even before I...Two years ago, they dismissed my warnings.  According to Joker, it got even worse while I was ...”  She still hadn’t come to grips with her death and resurrection and couldn’t get the words out.  She finally settled on “...gone.  They dismissed my warnings as ramblings of a Spectre that was over tired and misled by Saren.  They claimed Sovereign was nothing more than a Geth ship.  The Alliance turned me into a hero, a martyr, a damn recruiting poster!”  She took a deep breath and focused on the toy engine in her hands.  “If I went back there, they’d stick me a room and psychoanalyze me for the next year, then send me on a PR tour.  No, as much as I hate what Cerberus does, they’re the only ones with the resources and the guts to do anything.  They may stand for human dominance, but they want to stop the Reaper threat more than anyone else in the galaxy right now, and that’s a damn shame.  No, it’s a fucking outrage!”  With an obviously controlled motion, she set the engine part back in the box.

Thane was intrigued by the unexpected glimpses into Shepard's personality that he was gleaning. He was positive that she was unaware of how much of her internal thoughts she was giving away.  She was unable to admit that she had died. Was it because her death was a ruse, and she was unaccustomed to lying?  Thane was very good at reading body language, and even though he wasn't as proficient with humans as the more established species in the galaxies, he was fairly convinced that she wasn't lying.  Of course, he thought that coming back from the dead was even more improbable, so for now, he decide to withhold judgement about Shepard's true story until he knew more.  Setting that aside, she was obviously passionate about her convictions on the Collectors and the Reapers.  He could also hear the distress frequencies in her voice when she talked about the Alliance.  He sipped his tea and kept listening.

She shook her head.  “The Illusive Man’s pouring billions of credits into this.  Makes sense if you believe that our entire civilization is at risk, but why can’t anyone else see it?”

“People are often unwilling to face uncomfortable truths.

“It’s more than that.  The Council is being...I don’t know.  They’re refusing to see what’s in front of them.  They aren’t even willing to consider the possibility that what I’m saying is true.  How do you break through that?”

Thane smiled.  “From what I’ve seen of you thus far, I have no doubt that you will eventually make them realize the gravity of the situation.  Your will seems indomitable when you set your mind to something.”

“Damn straight I will.  Even if it means dragging that Collector ship back to the Citadel and shoving it in the Council’s faces.”  She picked up her model ship again.  “This is good.  Helps me focus on staying calm when I’m so mad I could spit.”  Shepard looked up just in time to catch Thane’s raised eyebrow.  “Just an expression, I promise.  No promises about hitting something though.  But not tonight.  I promised myself I’d get these engines finished tonight.”

“May I?”   Thane had never seen a ship model such as the one Shepard held.  The idea of replicating something like a starship in such a tiny format was interesting to him, and his fingers itched to pick up the miniature replica and study it.

“Sure.  See if you can find these pieces for me, would you?”

While Thane poked through the pile of pieces in the box, she asked, “How does one become an assassin, anyway?  I mean, you’re not a typical merc.  Your dossier said best in the galaxy.  That’s a pretty bold claim.”

“A mercenary is just a thug in custom painted armor,” Thane said dismissively.  “I am much more than just a mercenary.  I am a master of my art.  I have been trained for this since I was six years old.”

“Wait, what?”  Shepard set her model down and looked at the drell sitting calmly across from her.  “You started killing people when you were six?”

He quirked a smile at her.  “Of course not.  I didn’t make my first kill until I was twelve.  The hanar took me in as part of the Compact when I was six, and that’s when I started training.”

Shepard still had a look of disbelief on her face.  “Twelve?  That’s not much better.  When I was twelve, I was learning astrogation and just starting to notice boys.   I sure as hell wasn't thinking about killing people.  Well, not seriously.  What’s this Compact?”

“How much do you know of drell history?” he asked.

She furrowed her brow.  “Honestly, not much.  You’re the first drell I’ve ever met.  I took a few politics and history classes in the academy, but we focused on the Council races and the Krogan rebellions.”

He nodded.  “Over eight hundred years ago, our species started to aggressively industrialize our planet, Rakhana, but it was a desert world, and short on resources.  It wasn’t long until we had exhausted the planet’s capacity to support our population.  Two centuries ago, the hanar made contact and decided to rescue as many of us as possible.  They brought 375,000 drell to the hanar homeworld of Kahje where we still live.  In return, the drell formed the Compact with the hanar.  Some of us serve the hanar, doing what they find difficult.  Many become bodyguards or aides of one sort or another.  A select few show promise enough to be trained as assassins.”

Shepard was completely absorbed in his story, toy model temporarily forgotten.  “That sounds like slavery!”

“No.”  Thane was quick to deny her accusation.  He had heard that many times before, and he was tired of outsiders who viewed the Compact through their own cultural lens.  “It is an honor to serve.  It is a small repayment of the gift of life for the drell.  Without the hanar, the drell would be reduced to a handful of primitive tribes on Rakhana, destined only to fade into ignoble extinction, one of many races that fell prey to the baser urges of greed, pride, and war.  Much like the krogan, but the drell did not possess such renowned fighting skills and thus were ignored by the other races in the galaxy.  Only the hanar were moved to assist us, and they were beyond charitable.  They literally opened their homeworld to us, helped us to build living domes that approximated Rakhana's desert conditions on a constantly raining world.   They gave us life, hope and a future.  Set against that, the Compact seems a meager repayment.  Of the drell, only a few are called to serve, and anyone can refuse.  Few do.”

“How could your parents let you go?  Did they know what would happen?” she demanded.

Like so many others, she refused to listen.  Thane paused, then his eyelids fluttered.  His words came fast and jerky. _“Arms holding tight, tears falling down her face.  ‘We love you, Thane.  Remember that always.’  Another set of arms pulling me free, holding me for a second, then setting me on the floor.  ‘Serve with honor, son.’  Giving my hand to an older man, two hanar watching from the side.  A long walk to a groundcar.  The older one says, ‘You have a new family now, Thane.  We take care of our own.  You won’t be alone.’”_  He stopped abruptly and picked up his mug.

“What was that?” Shepard asked.

“Drell have eidetic memories.  We remember everything.  Sometimes a memory will be triggered, as fresh as when it happened.  I apologize.  I haven’t thought of that day for many years.”  He looked down into his mug, trying to keep other memories of his early days in the Guild from surfacing.

Something in his posture touched her.  “I’m sorry,” she said.  “I didn’t mean to bring up a painful memory.”

“Looking back, it was the fear of a child for the new and unknown, the loss of the familiar.  But it is merely a part of growing up.  All children eventually lose the security of their family, even if it’s to move on and form families of their own.  I served with honor for the drell and hanar.  It was a good life,” he added with a wry smile.

“Hmpf.  Still sounds like indentured servitude to me,” Shepard muttered as she bent back to her box of parts.  There was silence between the two for a while as she built up the tiny engines and Thane sipped his tea as they each contemplated what had been said.  

“Would you care for something to drink?  I was going to refill my tea, and I would be pleased to bring you something,” he offered.

“Yes, thank you.  Tea sounds good.”

While Thane was in the mess, Shepard wondered if she’d inadvertently offended him by likening his service to slavery.  Wouldn’t be the first time she’d put her foot in her mouth, and certainly wouldn’t be the last.  Usually, though, she didn’t care if she offended someone.  She said what she meant, and they could just deal with it.  Thane was different though.  Unexpectedly thoughtful and spiritual.  Well, maybe he was hard to offend, she thought.  That would be handy around her.

The life support door slid open, but she didn’t look up even as he slid a mug in front of her.  “Thanks,” she said and then bit her lip in concentration.  This piece was being exceedingly difficult to rotate into place.  At last, it snapped in, and she held it until the glue dried.  Finally she was able to set it down and pick up her drink.  Shepard sniffed appreciatively.  “What is it?”

“An asari blend from Illium I’ve come to appreciate.  It helps calm the thoughts but doesn’t dull perception.  It’s quite popular on Illium, especially among lawyers.”  There was a faint hint of laughter in his rumbling voice as he described how he had been introduced to it by his first client on Illium several years ago.  

Shepard cradled the mug in her hands and breathed in the steam.  It did seem to help slow her racing thoughts.  “I used to drink coffee,” she said into the quiet.  “Everyone does in the navy. You learn to like it, no matter how bad it is.  And it usually is quite bad.  But ever since I...came back...”  Again her voice faded away in an awkward pause, unsure of how to continue and this time Thane held the silence.  “I just can’t stand it anymore.  And the coffee isn’t the only thing that’s changed.  It’s disconcerting when I find something like that.  It’s like realizing your shoes don’t match, but you can’t figure out which is the right one.”

Thane’s voice was soft.  “So you did actually die?  There’s been quite a bit of confusion on that point on the extranet.”

Shepard nodded, not looking up.  “Dead.  ‘Just meat and tubes on a table.’”  A shudder ran through her hands when she said that.  “I don’t know how Cerberus did it.  The Lazarus project. That’s what they called me.  I...died.”  She said the last word slowly, but firmly.  “Then two years later, I woke up.  It feels like I just went to sleep, but the galaxy changed around me.  My friends changed.  Apparently, I changed, too, in spite of the Illusive Man’s insistence that I be brought back exactly as I was before.  Hell, I know it was a miracle I came back at all, but sometimes I have to wonder how much has changed.  Which shoe am I?”

Thane's inner eyelids fluttered before he could control himself.  So she really did die and come back from beyond the ocean.  The concept was staggering.  There were so many questions he wanted to ask her, but this was not the time, not when he had just met her.  This was an open contract, and he hoped there would be opportunities in the future to ask her if she remembered her trip beyond the ocean.  But for now, this was an intriguing and delicate conversation.  Very rarely in his life had Thane been close enough to anyone to have this sort of philosophical conversation, and never with an employer.  He considered his options.  Shepard was bold and unconventional, and yet she had been through something that no one else had outside of legend, and he could see how it weighed on her.  

Thane decided to take a chance of his own.  Greatly daring, he set his mug down and reached out to lift her chin up, forcing her eyes to meet his.  “Does it matter?  Your soul has returned to its body.  You are whole once again.  You know your purpose in life.  Does it truly matter if some details have changed?  Every day, we change. I am not the same man I was two years ago.  Perhaps if you had been alive for these two years, you would have awoken on your own to the realization that it is better to drink good tea than bad coffee.”

She laughed.  His fingers were cool and rough on her chin, and his words brought a genuine warmth to her smile.  Mission accomplished, he dropped his hand back to the table.  “Maybe that’s why I only have two pairs of shoes to my name right now.  Can’t get mixed up very easily.”  She leaned back in her chair and mulled over Thane’s words.  “You believe in a soul?”

“Yes.  The soul and the body are two parts of the whole.  They must work together, or the person becomes disconnected.  They do not know their purpose and cause chaos and pain, both to themselves and everyone around them.”

A longer silence held the room.  Shepard ignored her model now as she thought about the assassin’s words.  “How can you say that?  We both cause chaos and pain around us, but we both know our purpose.  I’m going to take down the Collectors and then the Reapers, no matter what I have to do to accomplish it.  You have your contracts, and you can’t tell me that killing someone doesn’t cause loss and pain for those around them. You just said my soul and body were back together, but I’ll be the first to point out that I cause chaos wherever I go.”

Thane nodded.  “I was unclear.  In the disconnected person, the soul and body work at cross purposes.  The person often has no clear goal.  The soul provides the guiding compass to a body’s work, but when the body will not listen to it, chaos results.  The chaos will spread from that person to touch everything around him, causing greater and greater harm.  Some people have little influence or power, and thus the damage they can inflict is lessened.  But others, like Nassana, have a great deal of power.  The harm they inflict spreads out in larger and larger ripples until something stops it.

“The same happens when body and soul work in concert, except that the changes they bring about will build something better.  But no change comes without cost, without chaos.  Just as a fire can be used to temper metal into a sword, it can also become a wildfire capable of destroying cities.  It is the intent and will behind the chaos that demonstrate whether or not the soul and body are working together.”

“So even if I have to cut a swathe through the Council and every major civilized species in order to get their attention, it’s worth it if we can work together to fend off the Reaper threat,” she mulled.

“Indeed,” Thane rumbled.  “But keep in mind that people are scared of fire.  They worry that it will get out of hand, that it will burn them.  Better to keep the embers low, they think.  That way it will still warm them, even if it won’t light the night.  I have a feeling that you, Commander, will burn away the darkness in a most spectacular fashion.”

“And what of you, Thane?  Is that how you reconcile what you do?  Making the galaxy a brighter place is what you told me.”

Now it was the drell’s turn to hesitate.  Memories of a broken and bloodied body lying in their bedroom, a child crying his heart out, pleading with him to stay, to keep his mommy from the sea.  “I have much to atone for.  I do it with the gifts that I was given.  To do less would be to deny the bond between my body and my soul.  What help I can give you, Commander, is offered freely.”

The sincerity in his rough, low voice was unmistakable, and she couldn’t help but contrast it with the rationale for the others to join her crusade.  Only Garrus had made the same level of commitment to her, had offered to walk into hell with her.  This assassin, this man so talented at taking life was promising to use those skills to protect her life and her mission.  

They both sat quietly.  Nothing more needed to be said.  It wasn’t until Shepard finally finished her tea that she broke the silence.  “Thank you for letting me stay.”  Her voice was nearly a whisper; the silence was so deep and tangible that it almost felt sacrilegious to say anything.  “It helped.”  She proceeded to pack the model back into its box. It looked significantly more like a cruiser than it had when she entered.

“You are welcome here anytime, Commander,” Thane replied as he stood to walk her to the door.

“I’ll take you up on it,” she promised.  “And Thane.  Call me Shepard.  Everyone else does.”

“I look forward to your next visit...Shepard,” he replied with a smile playing on his full lips.  Ever the gentleman, he escorted her through the doorway.  

She waited for the elevator.  Just before she stepped on, she turned to look back at Life Support.   The smile transformed her face from serious Commander to a young woman with a stunning and vivacious personality that transcended species.  Thane couldn't take his eyes off her until she disappeared into the elevator, then he slowly walked back into the room he could call his own.  His thoughts were consumed by the contradictory woman who was his new employer, and he knew that he would spend many hours trying to unravel the enigma that was Commander Shepard.  

 


	3. Relic Hunting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard goes on a side mission for Cerberus that doesn't quite go as planned. Afterward, she and Thane get to know each other a little more.

EDI’s electric blue interface popped up in Shepard’s cabin.  “Commander, the Illusive Man would like to speak to you right away.”

“Crap, EDI, I’m trying to upgrade the Normandy, figure out what’s up with Jacob, keep Miranda and Jack from killing each other, and figure out what's got a burr under Grunt's hump.  What does he think I am?  A miracle worker?”

“I believe he reserves that title for himself.  He did call you the Lazarus project, a clear reference to Jesus Christ, who worked miracles like raising the dead.”   There was something odd about EDI’s delivery and Shepard looked up at the holographic display.  “That was a joke,” EDI added in a deadpan voice.  

“You need to work on your humor, EDI,” Shepard replied with a shake of her head.

In the comm room, Shepard stepped into the scanner for the quantum entanglement device that was linked to the Illusive Man’s base.  As usual, he was relaxing in his chair with a cigarette.  “Ah, Shepard, good.  I need you to go check out a science base of ours that just issued an SOS.”

“I’m not your errand girl, Illusive Man.  In case you forgot, I’m busy putting my team together to track down the Collectors.  Remember, the whole reason you brought me back?”  Try as she might, she couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice.  God, but she hated working for that man.  She hated the idea of being beholden to him for her life, her ship, her crew.

“I think you’ll want to take a look at this.  I had a science team working on Namakli, and they reported finding a Prothean relic unlike any we’ve seen before.  They thought they could restore power to it, but shortly thereafter, they sent a distress signal and we’ve heard nothing since.  You’re the closest ship I’ve got, plus you’re the only person in the galaxy with first-hand experience deciphering Prothean beacons.  There might be something in it about the Reapers.  That’s why I need you to go.”

“What sort of relic?”  Shepard was interested in spite of herself.  If there was a chance of finding something that would give them an edge over the Reapers, then he was right.  She couldn’t ignore it.

“We’re not sure.  The science team was following a strange spike in electromagnetic activity near a suspected Prothean ruin.  Looks like they discovered an old colony from the end of the Prothean civilization.  The architecture is decidedly different from other ruins.  When they tracked down the source of the energy, the relic shut down.  They spent three months trying to wake it up again.  Dr. Acali had just sent a report citing some success by exposing the relic to different genetic samples, but that was the last message before the distress call.  Shepard, we need that relic.”

Shepard nodded.  “Alright.  We’ll go take a look.  Keep your fingers crossed.”    She stalked out of the comm room with a scowl on her face.  She felt like a puppet on a string, dancing to the Illusive Man’s tune, but dammit, the lure he dangled was just too good to pass up.  Kelly looked askance at her as she strode up to the galaxy map.  “You have a new message, Commander.”  Shepard took a look, and as expected, it was the coordinates to the relic site.  

“Joker, plot a course to the Zaherin system and head for Namakli.  EDI, scan the spectrum to see if you can get some intel before we land.”

“Yes, ma’am,” came Joker’s swift response.  “We should be there in 14 hours.”

“I will keep you apprised of the situation, Commander,” EDI added.

“Fine.  I’m going to the battery.  Let me know if anything changes.”  Still scowling, she made it to the elevator in three long strides.  Apparently, she looked mad enough that none of the crew in the mess gave her a greeting. Even Gardner let her pass without a word.  

The battery was a hectic mess of parts, cables and people.  It took her a moment, but she finally spotted Garrus’ long legs sticking out from underneath the far end of the battery.  “Garrus,” she called as she vaulted the rail and made her way forward.  

“Kinda busy, Shepard,” he replied without coming out.  

"How’s the new cannon installation coming?” she asked.

“Well, fortunately for you, I just happen to be one of the galaxy’s foremost experts in guns.  The bigger, the better,” the turian drawled from underneath the new Thannix cannon.  “It’ll still take at least two weeks to get the hardware installed, then we’ve got to get the power synched up with the drive core, and then it’ll take some delicate calibrations to optimize the output.  But when it’s done, we should have firepower equal to the Collectors’ ship.”

Shepard leaned back against the bulkhead.  “Music to my ears, Garrus.  You have no idea how badly I want some payback.”

"Probably almost as much as I do.  After all, they destroyed my Mako,” he teased.  

Shepard kicked his foot, drawing a laugh.  “Well, they also spaced my best friend, so I owe them for that,” he added.  

“Laugh it up, Archangel.  Anyway, I came down to talk to you about our next mission, but I see you’re otherwise occupied.”

“What’s up?  I don’t suppose it involves a tropical beach somewhere, hrm?”

“You wish.  Cerberus has a Prothean relic they want us to pick up.”

“Oh goodie.  What’s the catch?  Ouch!”  

“What’s the matter?  Drop a wrench on that thick head of yours.”  An indistinct mutter was the only answer she got, so she went ahead and answered his question.  “The Illusive Man thinks the base was taken over by a hostile force.  I’m betting on geth.  They always seem to be drawn to Prothean relics.”

“Just like you, Shepard.  But maybe we’ll be lucky, and it’s just a couple of mercs.”

“We can only hope.  Oh well, I’ve got EDI doing long distance recon.  Hopefully she’ll find something by the time we get there.”  Shepard waited a moment, but Garrus stayed under the gun, and she heard the sputter of an electric torch.  “Alright, I’ll leave you to your first love.  Keep me updated on your progress.”

“Well do, Shepard,” he called out.

It was early afternoon, shiptime, and they’d arrive at the planet early next morning.  Shepard decided to make the rounds and check on her folks.  She was especially worried about Jack.  The young biotic had a chip on her shoulder as big as the Normandy, but all she could focus on was the detention facility on Pragia.  Getting her to talk about anything else was like pulling hen’s teeth.  Grunt was always fun to talk to.  She found a kindred spirit of destruction in the young krogan, but he was sorely missing the tempering of experience.  A few more battles and some scars and he might settle down.  She’d asked Ken and Gabby to help her redesign one of the cargo holds on the hangar deck into a krogan-proof training room last week so at least she could stop worrying about him cracking the glass overlooking the drive core.  

She stopped by to talk to Miranda out of a sense of duty.  Jack’s epithet of cheerleader stuck in her head every time she talked to Miranda, and for every horror Shepard ascribed to Cerberus, Miranda had a perfectly rational explanation of why it had gone wrong or why it wasn’t Cerberus’ fault.  It was hard for Shepard to get around all the memories of Cerberus’ past wrongs and think they might possibly, potentially, in some way be a decent organization. It just didn’t sit right with her.  So she avoided Miranda’s office as much as possible, only going in to check on the ship’s status and other such details.

Jacob was another one that she had trouble getting comfortable with.  She made sure to include him whenever possible, but they were both former Alliance, and they were both keenly aware that neither was Alliance anymore.  It made their interactions awkward, even though he was a damn fine soldier.  They talked often, but it never had the ease that she had come to associate with their latest addition, Thane.

After dinner, she made her way to Life Support with her nearly complete Alliance Cruiser model as had become her habit over the last several weeks.  Thane ushered her in, and she laughed out loud when she saw two steaming mugs of tea waiting on the table.  “I see you were expecting me.”  She sank into her customary chair and traded the box for her mug.  

“I hoped you would come by,” Thane remarked.  “You made a point of visiting with the rest of your squad today, so I assumed you would either stop by here tonight or you had grown tired of my company.  I’m pleased that it was the former.”  There was a barely audible rumble in his voice that sounded like a low laughter.  He opened the box and took the model out.  “You will finish this tonight.  And then what reason will you use to seek out my company of an evening?”

“I’ve got another one in the bottom of my closet.  A model of Sovereign.”  She wrinkled her nose as she said it.  “Don’t know why it got made into a model.  Not even sure why I bought it.  Maybe so I can smash it to pieces when I’m done with the Reapers.”

“Ah, another of your contradictions, Shepard.  You create, just so you can destroy.”

  
“Well, when you put it that way...”

The rest of the evening passed in a pleasant glow of conversation, tea and company.

* * *

EDI’s voice roused Shepard from an unusually restful sleep.  “Commander, I have picked up transmissions from the Cerberus site, and I have identified it as a Blood Pack mercenary troop.  It was encoded, but preliminary analysis indicates they are looking for a buyer for something of value.”

“Well, that’s two things that have gone right, and I haven’t even gotten out of bed yet.  Thanks, EDI.  Let me know if you pick up anything else.”  Shepard rolled out of bed and did some quick warmups to loosen her muscles on the way to the shower.  Blood Pack meant krogans, which would mean a tough fight, but still better than the geth that she had been expecting.  And hopefully EDI’s translation meant that whatever the science team had uncovered was still on the planet’s surface.  With luck, she could take out the mercs and secure the item and be out of there before anyone else showed up.  

After a quick shower, she dressed for battle.  First the compression suit with its medi-gel conduits and life support sensors, followed by her hardsuit.  She’d polished it last night and it gleamed white with red accents on the arm and shoulder guard.  While she was getting dressed, she considered her team options.  “Grunt, definitely,” she nodded to herself.  He needed both the experience and to get out and hit something before she had to replace the heavy duty plating in the training room again.  Plus if she was going up against Blood Pack, she wanted some serious muscle on her side, too.  “Garrus.  No, too busy with the Thannix.”  She didn’t want to pull him away from his project.  It was too delicate to leave in someone else’s hands, and she wanted it done ASAP.  She wanted someone who could back her up from a distance.  Between herself and Grunt, they would create the front line havoc.  Jack would only add to that.  She wanted someone a bit steadier to balance out Grunt.  “Thane,” she said decisively.  She could use his calm to balance Grunt, and he could stay back and pick off targets that got too close.  Plus she liked the steadying influence he brought to the team.

“EDI, tell Grunt and Thane to suit up and meet me in the shuttle bay.”

* * *

The science camp was in a box canyon.  Shepard cursed when she saw the layout.  The entire merc group was going to be alerted to their arrival, and she dodged a lucky shot that made it into the shuttle cabin.  Activating her tech armor, she dropped to the ground and took cover behind some crates.  “Grunt, flank left.  Thane, keep anyone else from joining the party!”

A wild glee took over as she threw warp fields across the clearing, alternating with bursts from her assault rifle.  Between her and Grunt, they were inflicting some serious damage and confusion into the merc group.  Behind her, she heard the steady crack of a sniper rifle and just had time to see a bulky shape drop as it ran out from a tunnel in the cliff face.  There was a sudden lull in the fighting, and she realized they’d taken out all the mercs in the clearing.  “Grunt, ten o’clock.  Move out.”

Grunt was already close to the tunnel entrance and took off like a freight train, not bothering to wait for her.  “Damn krogan!  Wait for me!” she yelled at him, but he was already inside the tunnel.  She ran to catch up, but by the time she made it inside, Grunt had disappeared around a bend.  The tunnel was natural with a few outcroppings, and Shepard could see in glimpses as she ran that it had been widened with explosives.  

Up ahead, she heard the unmistakable clash of two krogans hitting at full speed in battle armor.  “Damn kid, gonna get himself killed,” she muttered and dashed around the corner and nearly ran into a reeling krogan merc.  Grunt and a heavily scarred krogan in blood red armor were picking themselves up from where they had obviously collided.  The tunnel was only straight for fifteen feet or so before it bent again out of sight.  Shepard heard heavy footsteps pounding down the corridor heading for them, but she didn’t have time to spare because the first merc was up and charging her.  She ducked out his way and threw a warp field at him to weaken his armor and stop his regeneration.  He shrugged it off as he pivoted far too quickly and charged back at her.  

She brought her assault rifle up and fired point blank, again dodging out of his way.  Out of the corner of her eye she saw two more krogan and a vorcha pyro come around the far corner.  “ _Who the hell gave a vorcha a flamethrower?_ ” her mind screamed as she danced away from the newcomers.

The vorcha threw the handle, dousing the entire narrow tunnel in flame.  She knew the krogans would shrug it off for the most part, but the flames were eating away at her protective tech shielding.  With an angry scream she dove toward the vorcha and snapped into a roll, trying to get to the side and target his tank before her shielding gave out.  Her rifle was already targeting him as he started to turn.  She squeezed a three round burst into the tank valve, and the vorcha dissolved into a fiery inferno that tossed her backwards several feet.  Her tech armor took most of the blast but sizzled out at the very end, letting a fierce blast of heat wash over her.  

Shepard jumped back to her feet and glanced around to get the situation. Grunt was taking on two krogan mercs by himself and she could hear him roaring in battle rage.  The first krogan merc had been at the far end of the tunnel and hadn’t been affected by the explosion at all, and he was already charging her again.  Just beyond him, she caught a glimpse of Thane coming around the corner with his assault rifle up, and she heard his rifle bark.  She knew he had hit the charging merc in the back, but the krogan gave no signs that he even felt the bullets.  

Again, Shepard tried to dodge out of the way, but the tunnel was too narrow.  She squeezed her assault rifle and fired point blank into his midsection just before the merc ran into her headlong.  She knew he intended to smash her against the rock wall, and at the last second, she tried to wrap a biotic throw behind herself to cushion the impact, but she couldn’t get her arms into the proper position to trigger the muscle reflexes that would activate her biotics.  

There was a loud crack that accompanied her impact with the wall, and Shepard saw stars.  Her breath was crushed out of her lungs, and then she was toppling to the ground underneath the krogan.  Her foot got caught on something as they fell in a tangle, and suddenly a sharp shooting pain stabbed from her knee all the way up her side.  The pair fell to the ground, and Shepard was nearly stunned into immobility.  The krogan had fallen on her right side, pinning her arm and rifle to the ground.  She hammered against his face, trying to pull her arm free, but she was still too shaken to put much force behind it.  He roared and snapped at her hand, pulling back his own arm to pummel her.  

With lightning reflexes, she jabbed her fingers into his beady eye, causing another roar and this time he did roll backward far enough to release her rifle.  Her finger was already holding down the trigger as she brought it up into his face.  Nine rounds later she blinked and saw Thane standing to the side, his rifle jammed under one of the krogan’s body armor plates.  

The world was swimming around her in slow motion as she rolled to her side.  She tried to stand up, but a white-hot stab of pain shot from her knee and it buckled underneath her.  She saw Grunt trading massive blows with one of the mercs.  The other one was unmoving on the ground beside him.

“Go, go!”  She waved Thane on toward the other two and staggered to her feet.  “Damn it!” she muttered as she leaned against the wall.  Her vision was still blurry, and she couldn’t hold a bead on the other krogan steadily enough to take a shot.  Fortunately, Thane was there.  

Shepard wasn’t entirely sure she could believe her eyes.  Thane kicked the merc’s knees to the side one after the other, effectively crippling him.  Then he eeled around to the front and unleashed a volley of blows to his face and throat so fast she thought she must be hallucinating.  The krogan reeled, and Thane was just as suddenly off to the side, letting Grunt finish him off with his shotgun.

“Shepard, how bad is it?”  Thane was back at her side, looking at her face and then down to see that she was keeping her weight off her right leg.  

“I’ll live,” she growled as she hit the controls on her suit to pump in more pain medicine.  “Come on, let’s go get that relic.  Grunt, if you take off ahead of me like that again, I will rip your armor into little strips and shove it out the garbage disposal, and then I’m going to start ripping your idiotic ass into even smaller pieces and doing the same thing with you.  We are a team, you soft-headed, unscarred idiot!  Start acting like it.  Do you understand me, whelp?”

Grunt seemed chastened, but that could just be her blurry vision.  Without another word, she pushed past him, ignoring the fire in her knee and ringing in her head by force of will.  She led her team further down the tunnel, and this time they moved as a unit.  

They came up to a cavern, and Shepard sent Thane ahead to check it out.  The assassin practically melted into the shadows.  Shepard and Grunt stayed behind some crates piled in the tunnel.  Grunt got edgy while he was gone, but an icy glare from Shepard made him subside until Thane reappeared.  “Six krogans, well spaced out around the cave with a kill zone set up at the tunnel exit.  There are also two human hostages secured at the back of the cave, most likely the Cerberus scientists.  The mercenaries have explosives rigged to some of the scientific equipment.”

“Alright, Thane, you and I will send out a welcoming party first.  Let’s hope there’s nothing too valuable in these crates, because we’re going to throw them out into the kill zone.  Grunt, follow it up with grenades, then I want you to charge left.  Thane, take out the ones closest to the hostages.  I’ll circle right, hopefully without attracting any attention and see if I can defuse those explosives.  If either of you spots that relic, protect it.  Ready?  Move.”

Shepard and Thane stood back from the crates and as one, they coordinated their biotics to throw the crates out of the tunnel opening.  It was so smooth it felt like they had rehearsed it a dozen times, but Shepard had no time enjoy the feeling of tight teamwork.  The biotic effort triggered a wave of nausea that she had to fight to keep at bay.  She tapped a button on her omni tool, overriding the safeties and sending more stimulants and pain medicine into her body.

The crates exploded into sawdust and splinters, but they did the job of forcing the mercs to expend ammo.  As soon as there was a pause in the firing, the team was through the opening.  Grunt was racing to take out his targets, and Thane had somehow already found a protected perch and was lining up his target.  Shepard grimaced and hobbled forward.  Even with the extra drugs in her system, her leg was too damaged to move quickly or smoothly.  She saw that she wouldn’t be able to engage the hostiles on the right, so she gritted her teeth and started throwing biotic warps at Grunt’s opponents while finding some cover for herself.  With any luck, the remaining krogans would focus on Grunt as the main threat and ignore the small human hanging back, and she could weaken them before they ever reached the kid.

For a few seconds, it seemed to be working.  Thane had dropped the two in the back, and the other four were heading toward Grunt.  Shepard took advantage of the opportunity to continue moving to the right and toward the hostages.  She had almost made it back to them, enough to see that they were alive, roughed up and very scared.  She turned back to Grunt and winced.  It was now three on one, and he was taking a beating.  He might be the ultimate krogan, but those were bad odds even for him.  She leaned her assault rifle on a crate to steady it and swept it around, looking for a target.  At least her vision had cleared up and her hands weren’t shaking quite so much.  She still couldn’t risk shooting the krogan near Grunt, but...there.  One of the explosives Thane had mentioned.  The light indicated it was live.  She tapped a few commands on her omni-tool and sent an override command to the explosives, forcing them to go off.

The explosive shook the entire cavern and dust and small rocks fell down, but it had the desired effect of knocking the group apart.  The krogan merc closest to the explosion was down.  Shepard trained her rifle on the one furthest from Grunt and started firing.  Thane must have picked the same target, because the merc jerked in two directions as he was hit.  She heard the deep boom of Grunt’s shotgun and the third merc fell to his knees.  Two more blasts and he was on the ground, but in the meantime, the first one had gotten back to his feet and turned toward Shepard and the hostages.

"Damn stupid krogans,” she muttered under her breath.  She centered her assault rifle on him and unleashed every round she had, and he didn’t even slow.  She was running out of time and bullets.  In the space of a second, she steadied her center, reached deep inside for the strength she needed, and hurled a biotic throw at the charging krogan.  She put so much energy into it that her amps were screaming and she immediately fell onto the crate for support, but she’d managed to stagger him backward by two meters.  That was enough for Thane and Grunt to team up and take him out.  

“Whoever you are, thank you,” the elderly woman told Shepard in a shaky voice.  

Shepard caught her breath and rubbed at her face.  Her skin felt like it was on fire from the new cybernetics and L5 implants.  “You the science team?  Where’s the relic?” she grilled the two humans.

The other one, a middle-aged male, nodded.  “We’re all that’s left.  Crisce tried to sneak out last night, but they caught him and ...”  He couldn’t finish and the woman took over.  

“We were to be part of the sale, too.  The leader was quite angry with the one who killed Crisce.  Said it cut his profit margin and he’d have to make it up by reducing overhead. Then he shot the one who killed Crisce.  Thank you so much for rescuing us.  I’m afraid to think of what would have happened to us.”

Shepard bit back a comment about the brutal life of slaves.  No point in scaring these two more with what could have happened.  Instead she tried to reassure them.  “You’re safe now.  We’ll get you back home.  Is that the relic?”  Shepard spotted a silvery sphere behind the pair.

The man nodded.  “Yes, it’s intact, but it’s nothing like any other relic we’ve ever come across.  Only the ruins nearby gave us a clue that this was a Prothean site.  We had just discovered that it was responding to touch, and we were going to try various tissue samples...”

Shepard waved him off and limped away.  She could really care less about whatever he was babbling about.  Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, the twin pains in her knee and her head were about to overwhelm her, and she was vaguely aware of more pain in her back.  She saw Thane disabling another one of the explosives.  “Grunt, get over here.”

He was a mess.  His armor was dented and missing a few pieces, and he was covered in blood.  She couldn’t tell how much was his, but he was still on his feet, so she supposed his regenerative abilities would keep him mobile.  She leaned against the crate and just looked him over for a long moment.  “Good job, kid,” she finally said.  “Beating four on one odds is impressive.  If you can learn to keep your head and work with your team as well as you can fight by yourself, you’ll be as worthy a krogan as Urdnodt Wrex.  But I meant what I said earlier.  You better damn well learn to control yourself.  I need a team when we go against the Collectors, not a goddamn bunch of egotistical superheroes.  Got it?”

The massive krogan ducked his head.  “Yes, Commander.”

“Good.  Do that, and we’ll smash our enemies to dust and deep space until none remain.”

“Yes, Commander,” he growled again much more enthusiastically and hit his fists together.

She ordered him to stay behind and guard the relic until they could get a team down to move it and the rest of the equipment to the shuttle.  Thane and the scientists accompanied her back through the tunnel to the canyon.

The pain in her leg was making her vision go blurry again and she had to stop to catch her breath.  Suddenly Thane was by her side, slipping an arm around her and supporting her weight.  “Allow me, Shepard.”

“Didn’t seem so far going the other direction,” she grunted as they made their way back at her slow, halting pace.  

“It never does.  Remind me to tell you about the time I had to make an exit through a two foot waste fuel pipe after a job.  At one point, I had to dislocate my shoulder to get through.  At least there’s room to stand upright here, along with a breathable atmosphere.”

“Yuck.  Don’t like tight spaces,” she gasped.  She was putting more and more of her weight on Thane, but the sight of the shuttle ahead gave her new strength.  Thane helped pull her into the shuttle and get seated, then he got the scientists strapped in.  Shepard leaned her head back against the shuttle hull and was unconscious before they lifted off.

* * *

 “Shepard, wake up.”  Thane’s gravelly voice rumbled softly in her ear.

“Hunh?  What...owwwwww.”  She came to the realization that she had been sleeping on Thane’s shoulder.  She had about one second where she felt a warm comforting sensation before it was shoved aside by another bout of nausea.  She started sweating as she brought up her omni-tool and ordered more pain medicine.  She had to override the safety again, and this time, the lights stayed on accusingly, a visual note that the Alliance used to let medics know when soldiers had pushed beyond safe limits too many times.  She know Chakwas would give her hell for it later, but that was then, and right now, she just wanted the pain to go away for a little while longer.  She dialed in another dose of stimulants, too.  She needed a clear head as she got the landing party and its cargo organized.  “EDI, have Miranda meet us at the shuttle bay.”

When the shuttle door opened, Shepard didn’t get up right away.  She waited for the scientists to get out and motioned Miranda to come inside.  “I want you to go back down to the planet right away.  Take Jacob and Mordin.  I left Grunt there with the relic.  I want you to bring it up and find a secure place for it in the shuttle deck.  Whatever you do, do not touch it with bare skin.  The scientists were talking tissue samples.  I don’t know what they discovered, and right now, I don’t much care.  

“I know you’re going to send the data back to Cerberus.  Whatever.  But that relic stays on the Normandy until I get a chance to look at it.  If there’s something in it that can tell us about the Reapers, I have to find it.  Understood?”

“Yes, Commander.  I’ll take care of it.  Shall I call Dr. Chakwas down here to escort you to the medical bay?”

“No!”  Shepard winced as she grabbed a handhold and pulled herself upright.  Her bad leg had stiffened almost completely during the flight back to the Normandy.  “It’s not that bad.  I’ll go see her later.  Check on Grunt for me, though.  He took on four krogan mercenaries by himself.  The kid did good.”

Shepard hopped out awkwardly and let Miranda get in the shuttle.  She could feel Miranda’s disapproving gaze on her back, but she didn’t care.  She put all of her concentration into forcing her bad leg to move and support her weight.  She would _not_ be carried through the halls of her own ship!

Thane was still by her side, and reluctantly, she accepted his help again to get to the elevator.  Jacob stepped out of the elevator and saluted her.  All Shepard could muster was a tired nod.  The elevator ride to her cabin took forever, and she slumped against the wall.  “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather go to the medical bay, siha?” the drell asked.

“Just get me to my room,” she growled.  She was so tired that her words were slurring together and her vision was blurring again.  She desperately hoped she could make it into her cabin and send Thane away before she embarrassed herself by fainting.

Thane grabbed her around her waist and with his help, she hopped across the short hallway to her cabin.  “Thanks, Thane.  You can go.  I’m good now.”

“No, Shepard, you are not.  If you will not go to the medical bay, at least allow me to help you get settled.”  She was going to argue, but something in his tone and the strength of his grip around her waist made her decide it would be a battle she didn’t have the strength to win right now.

“Fine,” she muttered ungraciously.  

Thane helped her inside and she leaned up against the shower wall to start unbuckling her armor.  Another bout of nausea hit her as the chest and back armor fell to the floor.  She concentrated on her breathing, and by the time she battled it down, the assassin had finished removing her arm and leg plates.  This time, he didn’t even ask.  He picked her up and carried her down the stairs to set her on the bed.  He produced a knife from somewhere and started to cut through the leg of her compression suit.  “Hey, you’ll ruin it,” she protested.  

Thane quirked a smile at her and went to retrieve her back armor.  He turned it around to show it to her.  “I think it’s already a lost cause.”

“Holy crap,” she breathed.  There was a nearly circular hole punched in the back with cracks radiating from the hole’s edge all the way out to the sides of the armor.  “That fucking krogan broke my armor!”

“You’re lucky he didn’t break anything else.  How’s your back?” Thane asked.  

Shepard shrugged her shoulders experimentally and winced.  “I don’t think I want to know.”

Thane started to cut the leg off her compression suit again, and this time Shepard didn’t stop him.  He slit the leg almost up to her thigh, and she grimaced when she could see how red and swollen her knee was.  It was already showing hints of black and purple around the knee and ankle.  Thane lightly ran his fingers along her leg.  She held her breath in anticipation of more pain, but his touch was light enough that she could barely feel it.  “Torn ligaments,” he pronounced.

“What, you’re a doctor, too?”

He nodded.  “Close enough.  In my line of work, you have to know how various species are put together if you want to take them apart efficiently.  Let me see your back.”  

She leaned forward, but instead of checking her back, she felt his fingers gently touch the back of her head.  “EDI,” he asked, “please ask Dr. Chakwas to come to Commander Shepard’s cabin.”

“Thane, I told you I don’t need...”

He cut her off.  “Shepard, you have a head injury.  At the very least, you need to let Dr. Chakwas examine you.”  He moved back and she saw blood on his fingers, bright red against the muted green of his skin.  Automatically she reached back and encountered a tangled, sticky mass on the back of her head where blood had matted her hair.

Very softly, “Oh, I guess that explains a few things.”  She groaned and leaned forward to bury her face in her hands.  “And it was shaping up to be such a good day this morning.”

That got a faint rumbling laugh from Thane.  “You recovered the artifact with no casualties, saved the science team, and hopefully Grunt learned a valuable lesson.  I’d say it’s still a good day.”

The door slid open to admit Chakwas, and she sighed in exasperation at seeing Shepard’s condition.  “Why didn’t you just come to the med bay, Commander?  You know I’m going to take you straight there anyway.  No, don’t move yet.  Let me see how bad it is.  What’s the worst damage?”  

Shepard opened her mouth to make a smart alec reply, but Thane beat her to the punch.  “Head, then leg, then back.”  

“Tattletale,” she muttered and submitted to Chakwas’ probing fingertips on her head.  She hissed as the doctor’s ministrations increased the pain in her head.  When Chakwas moved to her leg and started moving it around, she couldn’t help herself and swatted the doctor’s hand away.  “Enough!  Stop torturing me and just fix the damn thing!”

Chakwas stepped back and met the Commander’s angry glare with a steely one that was honed from decades of dealing with injured and angry servicemen.  “You need to be in the med bay now, and I refuse to allow you to walk there.  Sere Krios, might I ask your assistance in carrying the Commander down to the med bay?  And before you object, Commander, you can either be carried by one crewmember, or I can get a stretcher and we can get more people involved.”

“Of course, Doctor.”  Thane leaned in and scooped her up, careful not to jostle her hurt leg.  Before she quite realized it, she was cradled securely against Thane’s chest.  He moved up the stairs and out into the hallway so smoothly she felt like she was floating.  While they were waiting for the elevator to arrive, he leaned in so he could whisper in her ear, “Speaking of good days, my day just got much better.”  

Shepard stared up at his face, wondering if he meant what she thought he did.  He looked down at her with an enigmatic smile on his face, and she could feel her cheeks blushing hot.  Suddenly, she found herself hoping he wasn’t quite the expert on human emotions that he was on human physiology, and he’d attribute the blush to her injuries.  She looked down, but all that did was remind her how well muscled his chest was.  This close, she could smell an unusual spicy scent from his skin.  It wasn’t unpleasant at all.  In fact, it was somewhat exhilarating, and a stray thought went through her head, wondering what she smelled like to him.

She was mesmerized by the subtle strength in his body and equally distracted by trying not to be distracted by it.  She felt both relief and a pang of regret when Thane set her down on an exam table.  

Chakwas used the sophisticated suite of diagnostic tools in the Normandy to swiftly diagnose her.  Severe concussion, but no immediate brain swelling or damage, torn ligaments in both her knee and ankle, and severe to moderate bruising across her torso.

“Your cybernetics will repair most of the damage, but your leg needs surgery to reattach the ligaments.  However, I don’t want to risk operating for a few more hours until I’m sure you’ve suffered no brain damage.  Given your accelerated healing rate, you should be in the clear by tomorrow morning, and then it’s a simple procedure to go in and repair the damage to your leg.  And don’t think I didn’t notice your suit diagnostics.  You overdosed on every medicine you had, so you’re not moving from that bed until tomorrow.”  Chakwas paused, then continued in a kinder voice.  “Next time, Commander, try not to get caught between a rock and a krogan.  Now get some rest.”  She settled back down at her desk.  

Thane bowed in Shepard’s direction.  “I will let you get your rest, Shepard.  Perhaps you would allow me to visit later tonight?

Shepard smiled wistfully at Thane.  “I’d like the company.  Anything to break up the boredom of being confined to bed.”  Ever since waking up in the Cerberus lab and finding out she’d been dead, she had tried to avoid the med bay whenever possible.  Every time she came in here, it reminded her of the Collector attack and her utter failure there that resulted in the deaths of twenty of her crew. Then she’d think about what Cerberus did to resurrect her.  Thoughts of all those doctors poking around in her body and her head, touching her more intimately than anyone else ever had made her shudder.  She forced her thoughts back to the present.

Well, there was always administrative work that piled up.  “EDI, would you help me out and transfer my files on planetary resources to my omni-tool?  And please send a note to Garrus asking for an update on the Thannix cannon.”  She tried very hard to remember that EDI was a sapient creature and due the same respect as any other crewmember.  

Shepard put in a couple of hours reviewing potential resources and making notes.  She talked with EDI and engineer Donnelly about the possibility of recruiting a xenogeologist to take up some of the load on resource scanning.  She made it up to the lists of requisitions they needed from a major port before exhaustion claimed her again and she fell asleep.

* * *

 

“Aren’t you a little squishy to be playing tackle with a krogan, Shepard?”

“Gah!!  Garrus?  God, you’re a scary sight to wake up to.  Ow.”  Shepard grimaced as she rubbed her neck.  She’d fallen asleep propped up against the med bay wall, and now her neck and shoulder were knotted up almost as badly as her back.  “Ow, ow, ow.  Where’s Chakwas?  I want some more pain medicine.”

“Wimp,” Garrus teased her.

“Yeah, well not all of us were born with our own armor plating.  I think I did pretty well.  Sucker’s dead, and I’m not, so score one for me.  Besides, it’s just you.  I don’t have to put on the big bad Commander act with you.”  Shepard winced as she tried to find a more comfortable position.  By now, the bruising on her back and ribs had turned her midsection into one solid lump of pain that competed with her leg every time she tried to move her knee.  At least the nausea had subsided.

“I read the report Thane filed.  Looks like things went pretty well, except for your little injury.”  Shepard interjected a sniff at the description ‘little injury’, but Garrus ignored her and continued.  “So our baby boy is turning out to be a badass, hrm?  What do you plan to do for his first birthday party?  Set him loose on Omega?”

Shepard actually snorted a laugh at that.  “Don’t tempt me.  Maybe I’ll save that until he’s three.  We can have a quiet little party with the Blue Suns.  I’ll teach Grunt what a pinata is and let him go to town.”

Garrus frowned at the piñata term and used his omni-tool to reference it, then he guffawed.  “What do you think krogan would use for the candy?”

“Guns,” Shepard replied dryly.

Garrus settled down in the chair next to her bed.  “So what happened down there?  The only thing Thane really said was that your hand to hand could use some improvement.”

“Hrmpf.   Keep in mind he’s the best assassin in the galaxy and specializes in hand to hand, so I hardly think it’s fair to compare me to him.”

‘“I thought you were calling him the ‘supposed’ best assassin,” Garrus remarked.

“Yeah, well after his performance today, I’m convinced.  My god, Garrus, I’ve never seen anyone move so fast.  He stunned a krogan with his fists!  You know how hard that is.  And he just might give you a run for your money in the sniper department.”

Garrus twitched his mandibles and laughed.  “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Shepard grinned.  “Alright, next chance we get, we’ll do a little range practice.  Would be good for everyone to at least get proficient with every weapon.  You never know what will happen.”

“You going to add in hand to hand?  You never know what’ll happen.”  Garrus was grinning as he threw her words back at her.

“Bastard,” she grumbled, but Garrus knew her well enough to know she wasn’t really angry.  “I suppose so, although I much prefer to kill them all before they get that close.”  They started going over the after-action report, dissecting every moment, looking for ways to improve their team.  

Miranda stopped by to assure Shepard that the relic was safely locked in the cargo bay, and Grunt appeared to be almost contemplative, for a krogan adolescent.  They agreed to drop the science team off at the Citadel, where Cerberus would pick them up.  The scientists weren’t happy about being deprived of access to their find, but Shepard wasn’t budging on that.  No one was going to mess with it while it was housed in her ship.  She wasn’t sure what she was going to do with the relic yet, but that was a decision that could wait a while.  

Garrus called an end finally.  “Dinner time, Shepard.  Want me to bring you back something from the mess?”

“No, thanks.  Still not hungry.”

Garrus flared his mandibles in concern.  “Now I know you’re hurt.  You never pass up a meal.”

Shepard grimaced.  “Side effects of overdosing on my suit meds.  Chakwas has already read me the riot act.”

“Doctors are the same in every species.  You do what you have to in order to survive, and they chew you out and patch you up later.  You’ll live.  Call me if you need anything.”  Garrus headed out, leaving Shepard alone with her thoughts.

She brought up her omni-tool, but even a combination of boredom and hating the med bay couldn’t overcome her resistance to requisition paperwork right now.  She sighed and flopped back on her pillow.  If she couldn’t focus on paperwork, maybe she could go back to the vision the Prothean beacon had shoved in her head and find something useful there.  

Visions of blood, of violence.  Machines merging with organics.  Sensations of pain, of loss.  The visuals were blurry, as if she had double vision.  The relays, pulling back to see a map, eerily similar to the galaxy map in CIC, but she didn’t recognize any of the systems.  A spiderweb overlaid on the map, pieces of it disappearing.  Did it indicate star systems being wiped out?  No, it was a depiction of the Reaper’s invasion, going backward in time.  She clenched her fists and forced the memory back, trying to get another glimpse of it.  The strands were converging on one system, no, not converging, originating.  Which one?  Where did the Reapers appear?  

With a physical effort, she forced herself to drop more deeply into the vision.  The Widow system.  Of course! The citadel.  Damn!  They already knew that from Sovereign.  The keepers flashed in her mind, along with detailed schematics.  It looked like chemicals.  Biochemical messaging, maybe?  She struggled to commit the strings to memory so she could transcribe them, have someone else translate later.  More images of cybernetics, a feeling of invasion, being changed against her will.  Was that from the beacon or from her memories?  She couldn’t tell.

Back to the star map.  Were there any other memories there?  Anything that indicated where the Reapers lived?  She felt like she was yelling at the beacon:  Tell me how to defeat them!  She felt herself drawn to Ilos, then back to the star map.  Suddenly new lights appeared.  One was over Ilos.  One was over...Mars!  The Prothean archives there.  Three...four...five more lights appeared in her mind, and she was drawn to them one by one, flying in and hovering over the planets.  Mars was similar, not much change in 50,000 years.  Off to the next one.  No name for it.  A jungle planet, all the foliage was red and purple, the largest animals were reptilian.  Another archive on an island in the southern hemisphere.  She flew back up to identify the planet - the third from a main sequence yellow star, then out to identify the star system.  No name, but its image was burned in her mind.

Off to the third archive, this time on a frozen dwarf orbiting a blue giant.  Again she saw the location of the archive, then pulled back to identify the system.  Finally the last one.  An ocean world, hot, almost boiling.  The archive was buried in the heart of the largest island near the north pole.  Another star system she didn’t recognize.  She growled deep in her throat.  No names to put to any of these systems, only pictures, and there were billions of star systems out there.

She couldn’t maintain focus any longer.  The map faded from her mind and she slowly came back to her physical self.  That’s when she realized she was shaking and covered in sweat, but it didn’t matter.  She had to transcribe what she’d seen before it faded from her mind.  “EDI, I need your help.  I’m going to describe some star systems. I want you to help me plot them.  I need to get to CIC, I need to see the map.”  She muttered the last as she rolled out of the bed.   It must be late; the lights were dimmed and she didn’t see any crew out in the mess area.   

She had just straightened up when a shadow detached itself from the wall opposite her.  “Gah!”  Shepard automatically reached for her pistol before simultaneously realizing she was unarmed and that the shadow was actually Thane.

“Shepard, you should be in bed.”  He crossed the med bay in two steps and had his hand on her arm, urging her back toward the bed.  

“No!  I have to get to CIC.  Now.  No talking, Thane.”

She put a hand out to push him out of the way, but he simply wasn’t there.  In the space of a heartbeat, he was by her side and picked her up again.  “If it is that urgent, then I will take you there.”

As he walked, Shepard started talking again.  “EDI, can you hear me?”

“Yes, Shepard.”

“Alright, take this down and start looking for known star systems that match these descriptions.  Shepard gave EDI the details in rapid fire, consumed with trying to get as much out of her mind before it faded.  This time, Shepard was barely aware of Thane as he carried her into CIC.  “Up to the galaxy map,” she ordered absently.  Thane didn’t put her down, but she didn’t even notice.  As she described the star systems, EDI highlighted potential candidates.  By the time Shepard finished describing the fifth archive’s location, the map was covered in multicolored lights.  She hissed in frustration.  “Too many.  Just show me the potential locations for the third archive.  “Delete everything not in quadrants three and four.”  She kept on like that with EDI, trying to narrow down what she’d seen.

Thane shifted her in his arms, and suddenly Shepard came back to herself.  “Oh, Thane!  I’m sorry, I didn’t even think...you can put me down now.”

“I think not, Shepard.  I wouldn’t want to be party to you getting in more trouble with the doctor.  This way, you can honestly say that you did not set foot outside of the med bay.”  There was a low rumble to his words that she was beginning to associate with laughter.  

She smiled back at him.  “Alright, but don’t complain to me when your back hurts in the morning.”  

“I never complain of aches in the morning, whatever the reason.”  

Shepard searched his face for several seconds, but was unable to tell if he was teasing her or simply stating a truth for him.  Giving up, she turned back to the map.  “EDI, I think we’ve got enough for now.  We can continue this later.  Thanks for your help.”

“I will continue to refine my search criteria to see if I can narrow down the possibilities.  Logging you out, Shepard.”

Thane shifted her once more as he turned and headed toward the elevator.  Again, Shepard was struck by how smoothly he moved.  Not a wasted motion.  And he seemed completely unfazed by her weight, in spite of the fact that he must have been holding her for close to twenty minutes.  She was no light weight.  She stood a couple inches above human female norms, but the gene mods had given her extra muscle.  The biotic use meant she was wiry instead of bulky, but she didn’t know many men who could hold that much weight without tiring.  Krogans, maybe, but all that armor wouldn’t have been comfortable for her.  Instead, she was noticing again how nice the drell’s body was.  They were a rarity throughout most of Council space, and Thane was the first and only drell she had met.

Thane deposited her gently back in the med bay.  Even so, she hissed again in pain as she tried to shift her leg around.   “Is there nothing you can do for the pain, Shepard?” he asked.

She shook her head.  “Chakwas was pretty incensed about how much I used during the mission.  Said I had to get it all out of my system before she could operate tomorrow.  Damn!”  She punched the bed in frustration, unable to find a position to get comfortable.

“Would you allow me to try something?”  Thane reached out a hand toward her waist, stopping short by a few inches, waiting for her permission.

Shepard nodded. She was so sick of the pain and being unable to move that she’d have accepted a krogan chiropractor if he promised to make things better.

Thane’s fingers traced down her spine until they rested just above her pelvis.  He rubbed small circles across her skin, traveling a few centimeters over and down.  Then he pushed in hard, causing Shepard to stiffen.  He put his other hand on her shoulder. “Relax,” he murmured.  “This won’t hurt.”  He pushed again in another spot and true to his word, it didn’t hurt.  Even more miraculously, the pain in her leg faded to a dull throb.

“How’d you do that?” she exclaimed in wonder as he stepped back.

“Pressure points.  A harder hit to a human in that spot will cause them to temporarily lose motor control of their legs.  Useful if you don’t want to kill, but need them out of commission.  Hit hard enough, and you can paralyze them permanently.  All I have done is overload the nerves in that area.  The effects are temporary, but effective.”

Shepard leaned back and studied him.   “The hands of a killer are those of a healer, as well.  You have more than a few contradictions of your own, Thane.  What are you really?  Assassin, healer, priest?”  Dark black eyes met hers unflinchingly.

“I could say the same about you.  Leader, killer, sister, mother.  Are you not each of those things to those under your command at one time or another?”

“Mother and sister?  Hardly.  I can’t be.  I have to be the Commander.  That’s what people expect.”

Thane disagreed.  “One does not preclude the other.  I would say you are as much mother as leader to Grunt.  And for Jack, you reach out a sisterly hand.”

Shepard’s thoughts flashed to the crew, the ones from Cerberus as well as the specialists she had recruited.  It was true in a way.  Jack, Joker, even Miranda and Jacob felt like siblings, the kind you couldn’t pick but would always have your back.  Garrus was her best friend and the only one she’d want by her side when she walked through hell.  Thane would be...well, the feeling she had toward him wasn’t at all sisterly.  Friends, yes, but something more.  Potentially something much more intimate, and the realization made her stomach flip.  She realized she’d been staring at him for too long and blinked as she looked away.  “I, uh...your analogy breaks down when you carry it out.  I mean, Mordin.  What would he be?  My genius but eccentric uncle?”

Thane gave a graceful shrug of his shoulders.  “Any analogy will only go so far.  I merely wanted to call your attention to something you do almost unconsciously now.”

She smiled and shook her head.  “I don’t know if I want to think about it.  What I’ve been doing works.  If I start consciously trying to treat Jack or Miranda as a sister, I have an unhappy feeling it will blow up in my face.”  An unwelcome memory of Kaidan rejecting her back on Horizon came to the fore.  No, she needed to keep her relationships professional, and that included a certain drell, she told herself.  She looked up to see him studying her intently, and she wondered what he could read from her expression.  Time to get away from this dangerous subject.  “Anyway, I hear you had some less than complimentary things to say about your Commander’s performance today.”

The assassin accepted the change in conversation graciously.  “Not at all.  I merely pointed out that in comparison to your marksmanship and biotic skills, your hand to hand is...lacking.”

Shepard laughed.  “So diplomatic.  Much more polite than my drill sergeant.  I used to be much better at it, I admit.  But as I went through the N program, I just focused more on using my biotics to push the bad guys back and use my weapons to finish them off.  I prefer my chaos at a distance.”

“The battlefield is chaotic enough.  I much prefer to control the circumstances.  The closer you are, the fewer options they have, and those you can control.  Plus there is the psychological advantage of close-in combat.  Few people are prepared for it. Like you, they prefer to kill at a distance.”

Now she eyed him in suspicion.  “You’re not going to stop until I admit I need some more practice, are you?”

Thane leaned back in his chair and quirked a small smile in her direction.  “I would be honored to teach you what I know when you are recovered.”

“Well, I don’t suppose I could find a better teacher,” she admitted with a smile.  “It’s a deal.  Soon as Chakwas clears me, I’m all yours.”  She realized what she said and suddenly flushed with embarrassment.  Maybe he wouldn’t catch the unintentional innuendo.  From the way his smile grew, it didn’t look like she was that lucky, but suddenly, she didn’t mind.

“I look forward to it, Shepard.”

“Me, too, Thane.”  And for a wonder, she really was.


	4. Reflections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thane reflects back on a previous mission with Shepard and realizes he wants her help with something extremely important and personal.

It had been nearly two months since Thane had been recruited by the infamous Commander Shepard.  Since then, his world had been upended more times than he could count.  He had watched as Shepard forged her crew into something more than a collection of talented individuals.  They were a team with a purpose.  They were a family with Shepard at their head.  

  


Shepard had taken him with her and Grunt to Tuchanka to help Grunt pass his initiation into adulthood.  She told him she liked the team dynamic of him and Grunt.  Sitting in the safety and solitude of Life Support, Thane allowed the memories to wash over him.  Tuchanka's sun beat down brutally onto the destroyed arena.  Columns of crumbling steel reached for the sky like skeletal fingers clawing up from the dusty ground.  The krogan pacing anxiously, urging the Commander to hit the keystone and start the Rite.  The Commander ignoring him in favor of scouting around the arena, noting heat sinks and medkits, but leaving them in place.  Her armor gleaming white under the yellow sun, her assault rifle speaking in three-shot clips as the three of them easily dispatched the varren.  At the end, she didn't even waste her ammo, simply hauling back and punching them.  Two strikes and the varren lay cooling at her feet.  

  


Even the klixen didn't faze her.  Shepard's voice was cool and calm over the comm link as she directed Grunt to her flank and himself to the stairs to make maximum use of his sniper rifle.  She was always aware of her surroundings and her abilities.  Thane's heart had nearly beat out of his chest as he watched her hold ground to make sure she took down her target even as a klixen flamed her, then leaping out of the way just as her shields failed, taking cover until they regenerated.  His sniper rifle had decreed death to the klixen that dared to attack his Commander.  

  


There was an eerie silence broken by the krogan declaiming the glory of his race.  Thane had ignored it as meaningless noise, scanning the arena for the next threat.  Shepard and Grunt had reloaded, and Grunt was once again urging Shepard to hurry up.  For the first time, she seemed on edge, her helmeted head scanning the arena just as he was.  Thane heard again the sound of the keystone scraping rock against rock, as Shepard struck it.  Then a deepening rumbling, one that shook small stones on the ground and stirred up the chalky dust.  

  


"Thresher maw!" she yelled into the comm link.  "Thane, by me.  Grunt, flank right.  Heavy caliber.  Aim for its mouth when it spits.  Watch for the venom!"  She swapped to her own sniper rifle and took a shot.

  


Thane rolled off the stairs and took cover with Shepard behind one of the columns.  He had heard stories, but nothing could prepare him for the sheer size and menace of the thing.

  


"Watch for the venom spit," Shepard warned over the comm.  "We're safe otherwise on this rock.  It can't get to us.  Keep to cover and take it down."  Her voice was so calm, as if victory were predetermined.  Maybe in her mind, it was.  Thane took his cue from her and settled into battle mode.  There existed only the target, his rifle, and the environment to work with.  He and Shepard both ducked from cover to cover, using their sniper rifles to pick away at the giant maw's defenses.  She had been right.  The maw couldn't close on them, and it gave warning before it spit.  Easy to avoid, but one by one, they were losing the flimsy columns that provided their cover.  

  


He had been keeping his attention on the maw and on Shepard, and was surprised when Grunt charged toward the stone precipice, firing his shotgun nonstop.  Apparently Shepard had been surprised, too.  Her voice was sharp, pitched higher than usual.  "Grunt, use your cover, you idiot!"  The krogan had failed to dodge in time and was knocked to his back.  He was easy prey for the maw's next attack, and Shepard realized it, too.  "Thane, cover us!"

  


Thane knew what she intended as soon as she spoke.  When she ran right, he strafed left, firing continuously at the maw and working his way to one of the remaining columns.  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shepard running as fast as she could at the stunned krogan adolescent.  Just before she reached him, she leaned backward and slid into the krogan, feet first.  She had enough momentum and mass to shove the kid into cover, and Thane reached his own shelter just in time.  

  


He heard her voice over the comm.  She wasn't giving orders; she was fuming and speaking out loud.  "I've had enough of this fucking worm."  As Thane reloaded, he saw Shepard unlock the Cain.  "Come on, beastie.  Stick that ugly head up again."  The maw complied, and Shepard stepped out, aiming the Cain right for its head.  To Thane, the Cain seemed to take an eternity to spin up.  Once again, he fired as he ran to his left, trying to keep the maw's attention on him and not on the bright, white target of his Commander.  

This whole situation was completely new to him.  He was used to working in the shadows, being the unseen hand of death, relying only on his skills to accomplish the job and get him out safely.  And now, he was dodging a monster under the unforgiving sunlight, doing his best to protect a krogan youth and a human woman determined to save the galaxy.  Strangest of all, he found himself delighting in the challenges.  How could he adapt his preferences for shadows to this open arena with broken columns?  How could he transform his pride at saving innocents to a determination to protect those he now called teammates?  Just when he thought the story of his life was written, the gods had shown fit to give him a new chapter.  They must have a sense of humor.

  


He ducked behind the column, one of only three remaining upright, just as the Cain fired.  "Got you, you fucker!" Shepard shouted.  The maw weaved unsteadily.  Its head was nearly torn in half, but its primitive brain was still functioning.  "Grunt, finish it off.  Prove you're worthy of Clan Urdnot."

  


The krogan youth yelled as he charged to the edge of the stone arena.  His heavy shotgun whumped over and over as he unloaded an entire heat sink of ammo into the monster worm's mouth.  Thane watched as the maw exploded, coating the youth in gore.  Even Shepard didn't escape, but it didn't seem to bother her, aside from wiping the ichor off her visor.  He saw her walk over and throw an arm around the young krogan.  "Way to go, kiddo.  I'm proud of you.  We actually took down a thresher maw!  Thane, where are you?"  He stepped out into the open and approached the pair.  She threw her other arm around his waist and hugged tight.  "That'll make a hell of a story to tell Wrex.  With the two of you at my side, we're unstoppable."  She hugged him again, and he could hear the smile in her voice, even if he couldn't see it through her helmet.

  


Her good mood stayed even as the rival clan made their move.  She was so proud of Grunt, and the krogan could feel it.  He turned down their offer, and they made short work of the rival clan.

  


His memory flashed forward to when they returned to the shuttle and EDI informed Shepard of the multiple mating offers.  He hadn't thought anything would embarrass his Commander, but he had been wrong.  Her cheeks had flushed pink as she stammered a rejection through EDI.  Grunt had stayed behind, only too happy to accept the mating offers that came to him, so it had just been him and Shepard on the shuttle back to the Normandy.  She had grinned at him in the shuttle.  "Damn, Thane.  That was amazing.  I took a maw down once, but I was in a Mako.  I never thought we could do the same on foot.  I thought we'd be lucky just to make it to the end of the countdown."

  


His reply, puzzled.  "But Shepard, you acted with such confidence.  How did you not think we would succeed?"

  


She winked at him.  "Secret of command, Thane.  Never let on if you're scared or unsure.  Make a decision and move forward.  Most of the time, you can make things work out right, but you have to be confident."  

  


Confidence.  It was that same confidence that made him turn to her for help when he got the message about his son.  After what he had seen of his Commander, he wanted that same confidence on his side as he attempted to stop Kolyat from following in his footsteps.  He had prayed to the gods that she would listen to him, would be willing to help him, and she had.  

  


His memories skipped like a stone on a still pond.  The thought of how close he had come to losing his son made it too painful to dwell on the memories for long.  He saw drops of blood fly from Kelham's mouth as Shepard forced him to talk, frightening in her intensity with red eyes glowing and fire on her skin.  A flash of white armor on the catwalk.  Her voice crying out his son's name, distracting him from the kill.  How his breath froze when he saw Kolyat with the pistol pressed to Talid’s head, and he only started breathing again when Shepard shot the lamp and punched Kolyat.  His heart broke when he confessed his sins to his son after all these years, and broke again when tears started flowing down Kolyat's face.  A father should protect his children, not cause them pain and hardship.

  


Skip ahead to their first painful, tentative talk in the C-sec briefing room.  Kolyat refused to look at him.  Then the flood of accusations, angry gestures, hurtful words.  Thane winced again, remembering.  His slow explanations, telling Kolyat what he had never wanted to, reliving the descent into darkness all over again.  His broken but sincere apology.  

  


And now the memories came easier.  Kolyat admitting that he would have done the same thing if he could.  Not an acceptance of his father’s abandonment, but an understanding.  Asking about his current mission, shock at finding out that he had been taken down by the actual Commander Shepard, Savior of the Citadel, learning his father was part of an elite team.  Thane explaining his goal, his one desire - to make the universe a brighter place for his son.

  


The silence had settled long and heavy.  Kolyat had bowed his head, apparently lost in thought.  Thane waited with the forced patience of decades of training.  His son finally came to a decision.  He wanted to know more about his father, learn what time had stolen from him, and to see his mother again through different eyes, but not yet.  Kolyat would serve his sentence and hope that they would be able to speak again before they were parted forever.

  


Thane remembered the elation that rushed through him when Shepard told him of the deal she had brokered with Bailey.  Not only would his son escape prison, but there would be a surrogate father figure to give him guidance when Thane could not.  It hurt to think of another in his place, but Thane had to accept that he had forfeited his right to be Kolyat’s father in any meaningful sense of the word, and would be grateful for what access to his son’s life he could have now.  And perhaps this Bailey’s advice would be acceptable where the same words coming from Thane would not.

  


His thoughts lingered on one final moment with his son, when Kolyat had stood and offered him a handshake and a whispered farewell for his journey.  No longer a boy, his son had grown to a man.  Thane desperately hoped the gods would continue to be generous to his family, and he bowed his head to pray to Arashu to guide Kolyat toward the light.

  


His door chimed.  At this hour of night, there was only one likely candidate.  He rose to answer the door, and as expected, Shepard stood outside with a new model in her hands.  “Got a few minutes?” she asked.

  


“For you, Shepard, I have all the time in the world,” he answered warmly and gestured her into his quarters.

 

* * *

A/N:  Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who read and favorited and followed.  And a special adoring thank you to those who left reviews.  They really do make my little heart skip and sing.

  



	5. An Eye For An Eye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard tries to help Garrus fight his demons. Will he choose vengeance or mercy?

There were times where being the Commander of a private frigate just wasn’t worth the hassle, Shepard thought to herself as she sighed and tossed another data pad on her desk.  She was still working her way through requisitions and upgrade plans, even though they’d been docked at the Citadel for over two hours now.  At least she’d already handled the leave assignments.  Everyone was granted seventy-two hours leave with a skeleton crew left onboard to manage security.  Jack had bolted practically as soon as the docking clamps engaged, followed shortly by Mordin, Jacob and Miranda.  

 

Her door chimed and she called “Enter,” without bothering to look around.  Garrus’ rough voice teased her.  “Haven’t you finished those reports yet?  How long do you plan to keep me waiting around?  Come on, we’ve got to go get you some new armor.  And then you can repay the favor by keeping me company while I look for a new scope, eh?”

 

Shepard finally turned around to see Garrus leaning up against her empty fish tank.  He was wearing his armor still scarred from the battle on Omega.  She huffed and stretched her legs out in front of her.  “Looks like you need a new set almost as badly as I do.”

 

“Nah,” he said with a shake of his head.  “But I have business in the same section of Zakera Ward as you’re headed to.  Figured I might as well keep you company.”

 

“Alright, but I’ve got more than just armor to order.  Hell, maybe I can even find some fish for that thing,” waving at the empty tank that took up the whole wall.

 

“Didn’t figure you for a pet person, Shepard.  Unless you went for a pet varren, maybe.  But fish?”

 

She reached out a hand, and Garrus caught it and pulled her to her feet.  They made their way to the docking port at a slow pace, chatting about the pros and cons of Elkoss Combine vs Sirta vs Devlon for her new armor.  The CIC deck was manned by a skeleton crew, and even Joker had taken advantage of shore leave.  

 

Their first stop was the Alliance Armory Outfitters in Zakera Ward.  The shopkeeper flipped between awe that a Spectre and N7 officer, the Hero of the Citadel, no less, was in his shop, and frustration that his records kept showing her as dead.  “I’m sorry, Commander Shepard, but I can’t sell you the N7 armor.  You aren’t on the approved list.”

 

“Look, Kevin, my biometrics match, right?  You agree that I’m Commander Shepard, not an imposter?”

 

“Oh yes, ma’am.  It’s a perfect match, but the system insists that you’re...um...deceased.  Two years ago.  And it won’t authorize the armor request unless everything is checked.” Kevin looked quite distressed as he told her this.

 

“Then just go in there and make a note that I’m not dead, that it was a government mix-up.  You supply the Alliance, so I know you deal with government snafus all the time.”  Shepard was holding on to her temper by a thread at this point.

 

“Well, that would work in most cases, but the Alliance is very strict about the sale of N7 armor.  You know how many people we get in here trying to buy a set who don’t have the right?  I mean, there’s this guy, Conrad, who comes in at least once a week trying to buy a set.”

 

“But I do have the right, Kevin.  You’ve already admitted that I’m Commander Shepard and that I have the right to wear the N7 designation.  So just fill out the damn requisition.”  She took a deep breath and smiled at him.  “Please.”

 

“Why bother, Shepard?” Garrus asked.  He had been lounging against the wall, looking at something on his omni-tool.  “We can get stuff just as good, maybe better, from Spiriosi Armor a couple blocks over.  None of this bureaucratic BS, either.”

 

“It matters, Garrus.  You have no idea what I went through to complete the N7 program.  And I want people to know it’s me, it’s Shepard, when they face me.  I want that psychological advantage.”  She turned back to the clerk.  “Look, can’t you put a note in there about deep cover, only partly dead, something like that?  I don’t care what you do, but I need that armor, and I need it today.  Look, you do this for me, I’ll even be willing to give you a promo.  You can get a recording of me saying this is my favorite store on the Citadel.  That would be good for your business, right?  And you know the paperwork will eventually catch up.  So what do you say, Kevin?”

 

Apparently her offer was tempting enough to overcome his reservations about irregular paperwork.  He even threw in a discount on her armor, which made her happy.  She needed every credit they could get to upgrade the Normandy and its crew, even if Cerberus was footing most of the bill.  Finally, another hour later, she’d been fitted for two sets and picked out the pieces she wanted, including some upgrades on the weave and medigel application.  Kevin promised to have the armor delivered to the Normandy by that evening.

 

“God, I hate paperwork,” she muttered as they finally made their way out of the store.  “Maybe after a couple hundred more years, we’ll get past the need for all this crap.”

 

“Not if you go by the turian Hierarchy as any example,” Garrus replied dryly.  “We’ve been in space for a hell of a lot longer, and I dare say we have just as much paperwork as the Alliance.”

 

Shepard sighed.  “Too bad.  The power to fly between stars, and we’re still checking meaningless boxes on meaningless forms.  Must be in our DNA.”

 

They continued shopping, ordering fresh supplies for Gardner, including plenty of dextro foods for Garrus.  “I’m sure you’re tired of turian MRE’s,” Shepard commented to him.

 

“Oh, I don’t know.  Freeze-dried _partae_ steak with _halak_ spice every day for a month?  Yeah, okay, it’ll be nice to eat something that doesn’t come out of a foil pouch.”

 

“Least I can do for ya, buddy,” she grinned and bumped up against his arm as she skipped down the walkway.  “Hey, fish! Come on, I gotta check this out!”

 

Garrus stared at her in surprise as she headed into a pet store.  “I thought you were kidding,” he called after her.

 

“Heck no.  There’s nothing more depressing than that great big tank being completely empty.  If they designed it in, I might as well put some fish in it, have something to look at.”  
  
“I can think of one thing more depressing,” Garrus replied.  “A tank full of dead fish because you forgot to feed them.”

 

“I won’t forget,” she promised as she turned back to peruse the selection.

 

Garrus watched in bemusement as she picked out a few different kinds and set up delivery to the Normandy.  “What’s next?” he asked.  “A hamster?”

 

“Ugh, no!  Why would I want a rodent running around the place?”

  
“”And that’s different from fish how?”

 

“Because the fish won’t get out and run across my bed at night,” she answered with a shudder.  “I hate rodents!”

 

“Spoken like a true spacer,” he chuckled.

 

She insisted on eating dinner out with him.  They found a bar that catered to both the dextro and the levo crowd, and soon they were swapping service stories over pints of beer.  It took about six pints, but she finally got from him how he’d ended up on Omega.

 

“After the SR1 went down and they had your funeral, I went back to C-sec.  Applied for the Spectres again, but didn’t get in.  I think my father pulled some strings to keep me out.”  He scowled and finished off his glass.  Shepard signaled for refills and pushed a bowl of _taguor_ nuts toward him, but she didn’t talk, not wanting to interrupt.

 

“It just all seemed so damn meaningless suddenly.  We’d beaten Saren, stopped Sovereign, but the threat was still coming.  And no one, not the Council, not C-sec, and especially not the criminals, seemed to care.  Nothing changed.  They put your face on the recruiting posters, but no one talked about the Reapers.  I’d put one drug dealer away, and the next day, there’d be someone to take his place.  People still kept murdering each other, kids were getting lost in the system.  Just couldn’t see the point of continuing, but I didn’t know what else to do.  My family has always upheld the Law, one way or another.  Cops, judges, lawyers.  I wanted to be a Spectre to bring justice to the galaxy, and then even that was taken from me.”  He hooked his talons around his new glass and took a deep drink.  “I remember walking home after my shift one night.  I never made it to my apartment.  There was a disturbance a block over.  I heard the shouting, screaming.  A couple of shots fired.  Saw a human running flat out away from the scene.  I went after him, grabbed his arm and started to drag him back to the crime scene, but he’s screaming about his rights.  Then the C-sec patrol shows up, and all they do is take his statement, then let him go.  Found out later that it was a gang hit.  Another human murdered, a volus shot by accident.  Better than average odds that the patrol that showed up was on the take, paid to look the other way.  Made me sick.  There’s just enough Law here on the Citadel that those with money and power can use it to protect themselves, and the ones who are supposed to protect the innocent are tied up in red tape and regulations.  So I decided to bring the Law, the true spirit of justice, to the one place in the galaxy that needed it the most.  I headed to Omega.  Don’t guess I thought much beyond that.  I just had to do something to make a difference, to live up to your memory, Shepard.”  He raised his glass to her, and she silently raised hers back.  “Damn glad to have you back, though.”

 

“Damn glad to be back, Garrus.”

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Shepard was admiring her new fish and giving thanks that her new cybernetics apparently mitigated the worst effects of a hangover.  The other packages had been delivered.  Gardner was ecstatic at the new supplies, almost as much as the lines of credit she’d opened so he could order what he needed whenever they were docked at the Citadel.  She’d given him express orders to stock up on as much fresh fruit and vegetables as practical.  As a lifelong spacer, she rarely got fresh food and hunted it out whenever she made it planetside.  

 

In her quarters, her new armor was stored in her locker.  Besides the gleaming white, she’d taken Thane’s advice and ordered one that was matte black, for those times when she might want to operate in stealth mode.  She chuckled.  Yeah, like that was ever going to happen.   But at least this time, if something happened, she had a spare.

 

She sat in her chair, staring at her fish, and flexed her knee experimentally.  Another thing to be thankful for, apparently.  The surgery had gone well, and with the cybernetic enhancements, she'd healed in record time.  She was torn again between feeling grateful to Cerberus for the cybernetics and being resentful at doing their bidding.  But in the silence of her own mind, she felt like she was being petty.  They were doing what the Alliance and the Council weren’t, and she realized, that’s what hurt most of all.  That a pro-human terrorist group had a better grasp of reality than any of the governments out there.

 

“Bah,” she said to herself.  It’s only the second day of shore leave.  Two more days to finish with some of the upgrades that Joker wanted, and she was moping around in her cabin.  She decided to head down to the hangar bay to get in a workout and test out her knee and then go sightseeing on the Citadel.  Then she was going to drag anyone remaining on board out for drinks.  

 

Her first week on the Normandy SR2 she’d had the crew set up a gym in the back of the hangar bay.  Some makeshift weights, a jury rigged punching bag and an area cleared out for sparring practice.  It wasn’t much, but she’d been on plenty of ships with less.  She made a mental note to order some new equipment later today while they were still docked.

 

Shepard had just started getting warmed up when Garrus stepped out of the elevator.  She took one look at his face and stilled the punching bag.  “What’s wrong, Garrus?”

 

“Shepard, I need your help.”  He paced back and forth, waving one hand in the air as he talked.  She’d never seen him so distraught.  “You remember me telling you about Omega and the group I had there?  How we were betrayed?”  She nodded silently.

 

I found a lead, Shepard. He went to ground here in the Citadel, courtesy of someone called Fade.  We track down Fade and make him give us Sidonis.”  Garrus was pacing back and forth, then stopped suddenly and stared at her.  “I need you with me on this, Shepard.”

 

She nodded again. “Of course, Garrus.  I’ve got your back, but just...”  She trailed off, then shook her head.  He wasn’t willing to listen to her right now.  Time to track down Fade, see if they could find Sidonis and then see what would happen.  “Just let me get my gear. I’ll meet you in the airlock.”

 

In her cabin, she slipped into her compression suit and snapped the new armor into place.  “Let’s hope I don’t actually need it today,” she muttered under her breath.  Louder, “EDI, which of my squad members are back on board?”

 

“Dr. Mordin, Grunt, and Thane Krios, Shepard.  Jacob, Miranda, and Jack are still on the Citadel.”

 

It was an easy decision, really.  She needed someone else on her team in case things got rough.  Grunt was too volatile to take into the Citadel unless it was an emergency.  Mordin would have been good, but in this case, she wanted someone with the moral background and steady composure that could handle a possible assassination.  She had no intention of letting Garrus take that shot, but she knew it would be damn hard to talk him out of it.  “Ask Thane to meet us at the airlock for a mission, please.”

 

“Acknowledged.  Logging you out, Shepard.”

 

She stopped in the armory long enough to grab her favorite assault rifle and the Collector beam weapon.  She didn’t know how it worked, but it was a damn useful weapon.  Jacob had been studying it for weeks now, but was no closer to figuring out what made it tick.  Pity.  She wished she could manufacture dozens of them.

 

When she reached the airlock, Thane was already there, waiting with an air of patience and appearing carved from stone.  Garrus, on the other hand, was pacing in the small space, and growled at her as she walked in.  “Why’s _he_ going with us?” he demanded.

 

She stared him down and her voice went icy.  “Because lately it seems like everything has been going sideways at the worst possible moment, and I want some extra firepower.  You want my help, we do it my way.”  She shouldered past him to trigger the decontamination cycle.  Her unvoiced thought continued, _“and maybe, just maybe, someone else to help me talk you down.”_

 

It was all she could do to keep Garrus in line as they intimidated the volus who was Fade’s contact, and when they encountered mercenary opposition on their way to confront Fade, aka Harkin, an old washout from C-Sec, she noticed that Garrus was back in Archangel mode.  Silent, his anger buried deep, and deadly accurate with his rifle.  Thane was backing her up on the other side.  Shepard was in the center, causing chaos and destruction all around her, bringing every one of her Sentinel skills to bear as she alternately overloaded mechs, used her biotics to strip the mercs’ shields, and then dropped them with her SAR.  Garrus and Thane took out the long distance targets, leaving her with her wild melee in the middle.  Between the three of them, they carved a swath of destruction through the cargo decks to Harkin’s office.

 

Harkin crumbled easily under Garrus’ interrogation and set up a meet with Sidonis, but again, she had to pull Garrus back and keep him from shooting the man in the leg.  She ignored the head butt he gave to Harkin as they left; all the turian’s anger had to go somewhere and at least Harkin would only need an aspirin, not knee surgery.

 

As they headed for the Orbital Lounge, she could feel the energy from both her teammates radiating at her back.  Garrus’ was angry, loud, like a physical presence beating on her armor.  Thane was quiet, but with so much confidence that it felt like a barrier field surrounding him.  Garrus obviously had something to say to her, and the silence in the aircar got more and more oppressive.  Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore.  “Spit it out, Vakarian.”

 

He turned his bright blue raptor’s eyes on her and his mandibles twitched in agitation.  “You’re going soft, Shepard.”

 

She glared at the cars in front of her and snapped, “Don’t you dare, Vakarian.  You are this close to going off the deep end, and I’m trying to keep you from drowning.”

 

“You’ve been pulling my teeth since we started this,” he accused, using an old turian saying for being made useless.  “Bringing him,” a thumb jerked to the back seat at the assassin, “stopping me with the volus, then Harkin.”

 

“That’s right.  Because this is the Citadel, not fucking Omega, and we don’t go around killing and shooting anyone we want.  You’re supposed to uphold the Law, Garrus.  You can’t do that if you turn into a cold-blooded killer.”  She was keenly aware of Thane in the backseat as she talked, but she had to get through Garrus’ thick skull somehow.

 

“You going to try and stop me from taking out Sidonis?” he rasped.  

 

‘Yes.”  Short and harsh.  “This isn’t you, Garrus.  I don’t want you to lose your soul to vengeance.”  Softer now.  “You’re better than this.  There’s a light in you and I don’t want that to go out.”

 

“Then why are you still driving toward the Orbital Lounge?”

 

“Because this has to be your decision.”  She bit the words off, not looking at him.  “I think you’re wrong, Garrus, dead wrong.  I think this will hurt you in the long run, but I can’t take this decision away from you.”

 

“And how is this different from Dr. Saleon?” he grated out.  His voice escalated as he kept talking.  “You and me, we went after him two years ago.  He was just as dirty, turning his patients into walking test tubes.  You encouraged me to take the damn shot, Shepard, and I did.”

 

“I was wrong!”  The words reverberated around the aircar, hanging in the air.  Garrus sat back, surprised.  “I was wrong then, Garrus.  I may have had the authority to do that, but that didn’t make it right.  Laws exist for a reason.  People deserve a chance to be heard.  Yeah, he was slime, and he was responsible for all those deaths, but we could have taken him in, turned him over to C-sec or STG.”  She drove past several more blocks before she spoke again.  “Everyone deserves a second chance, Garrus.  Whether or not they make anything of it, that’s up to them.”

 

“And what about the ten good men he betrayed?  Where’s their second chance, Shepard?  He doesn’t deserve to keep living.”  Garrus crossed his arms and didn’t say anything else for the rest of the trip.  Shepard took one quick look in the rear view mirror.  Thane looked back, his expression giving nothing away.  She couldn’t tell if he approved or if she had mortally offended him.

 

All too soon, they reached the Orbital Lounge.  As they climbed out, Shepard tried one more time.  “You still going through with this?”

 

He looked around and nodded toward the catwalk.  “I’ll be up there.  You draw him out in the middle of the room so I can take the shot.”  His voice was emotionless, as empty as the expression in his eyes.  She looked at him until he turned away and headed toward his would-be sniper perch.  She nodded at Thane, and the assassin followed him soundlessly.

 

“I’m in position, Shepard.”

 

With a heavy step, she walked into the lounge.  She spotted Sidonis immediately.  The turian had a haunted look, and his eyes were dead.

 

She beckoned him over and deliberately placed herself in Garrus’ line of fire.  “Damnit, Shepard, you’re blocking my shot.”

 

“Garrus, you’re better than this,” she said into her communicator.

 

Sidonis’ eyes widened.  “Garrus? He found me?”  The turian slumped as if some vital spark went out.  “I always knew he would find me someday.  Might as well be today.  Just let him kill me.”

 

“No,” Shepard said to both of them.  “Killing him doesn’t do anything to bring back those ten men.  It doesn’t honor their memories.  It just adds more blood to the count.”

 

Garrus growled into her earpiece, “Shepard, he deserves this more than Saleon.  Because of him, ten good men, ten friends, ten people who counted on me are dead!”  By the end, he was practically shouting into his communicator, and even Sidonis could make out the words.

 

“Tell him he’s right,” Sidonis said in a monotone.  “It was my fault. The mercs caught me, tortured me to make me talk.  I tried to hold out, but ...I’m only a man.  I’m not Archangel.  I see their faces every time I close my eyes.”

 

“He should have held out,” Garrus grated.  “Should have found a way.”

 

“Look at him, Garrus.  He’s dead already.  His spirit has fled, and he’s just a walking husk.  You want to punish him, let him live with what he’s done.”  There was a pause, and Shepard held her breath, hoping that maybe, just maybe, Garrus was considering her words.  It felt like the whole world was slowing down, waiting to see what her friend would decide.

 

She heard the distinctive whine of a sniper rifle closing up.  “Tell him to get out of here,” Garrus snarled with poor grace.

 

“Go on, Sidonis.  Garrus has given you a second chance.  Don’t waste it.”    She stood her ground between him and Garrus a moment longer.

 

“Yeah, I...I will.”  Sidonis looked stunned.  “I can never make it right, but I’ll do something.”  He turned away and half stumbled, half ran to the lounge exit.   Shepard watched him go and felt like a weight fell away from her chest.  Garrus wasn’t lost to her, and in that moment, that was all that mattered.  She bowed her head and whispered a silent thanks.

 

She saw Garrus and Thane coming back to the aircar.  She could see how Garrus was holding his anger in, walking stiffly and avoiding eye contact with anyone.  Thane was as economical of movement as ever.  He gave her a small nod that Garrus couldn’t see, and while he didn’t smile, his demeanor was relaxed.  His fingers grazed over her arm as he got into the car as if to reassure her that everything would be alright.

 

Garrus refused to meet her eyes, and she could tell he was still furious with her for blocking his shot.  “I know you want to talk about it, Shepard, but I don’t.”   She nodded back to him and got into the car without saying a word.  All she could do was give him time and space.   The trip back to the Normandy was long and tense, but Shepard couldn’t help but feel a thread of joy running through her.  Things would work out.  Garrus could never stay mad for long, and Thane ...well, if she was being honest with herself, no small part of her joy was due to the intriguing drell assassin.  There was something between them, and she didn’t know what it was, but she was looking forward to figuring it out.  

 


	6. A Welcome Ray of Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard and Garrus are angrily at odds with each other, and Shepard takes her frustration out on Thane in a sparring match.

Three days later, they were en route to Illium, and Shepard was having a bad day.  They’d been delayed two extra days at the Citadel because it had taken much longer to complete the upgrades to the Normandy than expected.  She made Miranda handle the extra docking fees and deal with Cerberus.  Then she’d had to go to C-sec to bail Jack out of jail after a particularly rowdy night at some dive in lower Zakera Ward.  C-sec and Citadel Authority had been upset enough about the damages that they had forbidden her from setting foot on the Citadel again while they were docked, which left Jack rampaging across the ship.  Out of desperation, she’d forced a training program on her crew and had paired Grunt and Jack together often enough for them to beat some of that aggression out of each other.

 

To top it off, Garrus was still not talking to her.  He’d holed up in the battery, claiming that he was busy with the hardware installation every time she stopped in.  He still hadn’t forgiven her for stopping him with Sidonis.  Or maybe he hadn’t forgiven himself for acknowledging that he had a soul.  She didn’t know, and worse, she didn’t know how to get through his thick skull.  Garrus was like her brother, and seeing him so upset was tearing her apart.  She wanted to just go in the Battery and yell at him until he changed his mind, but she knew that would only drive him further away.  She’d have to wait until he saw the light on his own.

 

They were headed back to Illium to pick up an asari Justicar.  She and Miranda had gone over the dossier last night, and Shepard was cautiously optimistic.  If they could get a Justicar to join their team, they’d have some serious biotic firepower that wouldn’t come with all the emotional baggage of their tiny, angry psychotic holed up in Engineering.

 

In the meantime, she headed to the hangar bay to work out her anger in their new and improved gym.  It still didn’t amount to much, but at least they had a couple of treadmills, some weights, and a punching bag that was certified to be “krogan-proof.”  She had her doubts, and had ordered a couple extra, just in case.  Ken Donnelly and his engineering team had reinforced the plating around the area so they could safely practice biotic attacks as well.  She was pleased to see the place was empty; now she could beat on things to her heart’s content without scaring the crew.  Plus it would be the first chance she’d had to really test out her new cybernetics and enhancements in a controlled environment as well as check that her knee was fully healed.

 

She called up some music by a favorite band of hers, Mercury Scythe.  Pounding drumbeats and wailing guitars filled the space.  Shepard turned the volume up as loud as she could and started warming up on the punching bag.  Usually physical activity settled her down, but ever since her resurrection, she’d felt wrong, as if something were off, but she couldn’t figure out what it was.  Today, instead of descending into her normal icy groove of clarity in combat, everything seemed out of kilter.  Her punches were coming too fast, hitting the bag before the rest of her body was ready, and therefore lacking the power she expected.  “Bring me back exactly as I was, my ass,” she muttered as the sweat dripped off her face.  “Not with all these cybernetics.  Increased speed, increased healing, armor weave in my skin.  Not even human anymore.”  She punched the bag again with a right cross and again her timing was off, this time enough to jolt her wrist backward.  “Motherfucker!” she spit.

 

That just triggered a whole slew of angry memories in her.  The bag became a target for everything that was wrong in her world:  angry Jack, perfect Miranda, teenager Grunt.  Gradually the speed of her punches increased as she danced around the bag and it creaked on its chain as she slammed it back repeatedly.  More memories came:  being ordered to missions by the Illusive Man, the Council dismissing her claims, Udina’s condescending tone.

 

The term “krogan-proof” drifted through her consciousness at one point, and she wondered if it was “Shepard-proof.”  She decided to put it to the test and tried to drag her errant thoughts back to her body, back to actual training instead of turning over old wounds.  It worked for a bit.  Her punches and kicks started smoothing out, and her timing improved.  The bag was rocking violently under her assault now.  

 

But the memories wouldn’t stay down.  Unbidden, she recalled an image of Garrus walking back to the air car, mandibles tight against his face with anger, refusing to even meet her eyes.  “Stupid!  Idiotic!  Turian!” she yelled, punctuating each word with a punch right where his upper lip would be.  His reaction felt like a betrayal, and the pain in that thought brought back an even worse memory, that of Kaidan accusing her of being a traitor and then walking out on her.  Anger and hatred squeezed her heart, and she yelled in frustration as she hit the bag and then delivered a spinning roundhouse kick that sent it flying on its chain.  Her form deteriorated as she delivered punch after punch to the bag, and she just wanted to destroy something.  Without thinking, she raised both arms overhead and charged her biotics.  Blue energy crackled over her arms as she hammered them down into the punching bag and discharged every bit of biotic power she had into a throw.  The chain couldn’t handle that much energy and snapped under the force, sending the bag flying against the wall with a satisfying thud.

 

Shepard bent over and put her hands on her knees, gasping for air with sweat running down her face and body.

 

“Feel better?”  

 

Shepard whirled around in surprise, biotic energy wreathing her arms again as she fell into a defensive posture.  She saw Thane lounging against the elevator bulkhead.

 

“Jesus jumping Christ, Thane!  Don’t sneak up on me like that.”  She released the posture, biotic energy crackling away into nothing.  She stalked across the space and grabbed a towel for her face, pointedly ignoring the assassin.

 

“I thought this might be a good time to work on your hand to hand skills, Shepard.  While no one would dispute your strength, your finesse still leaves something to be desired.”  A small smile quirked the corners of his lips, and she had the strangest feeling that he was trying to lift her spirits, but her dark mood had too strong of a grip right now.

 

“Don’t test me, Thane,” she growled.  “I’m in no mood for it today.”

 

He shook his head.  “I merely seek to offer you a more challenging opponent than a punching bag, one that might also be able to teach you a few techniques.”

 

She threw her towel across the room.  “Game on, Krios.  But don’t expect me to take it easy on you,” she growled.

 

He shrugged out of his jacket.  “I would expect nothing less, Shepard.”

* * *

 

Thane slowly walked back to Life Support from the med bay.  Dr. Chakwas had informed him that he needed to increase his physical activity to stimulate his lungs and maintain functionality, but that otherwise, there was no change in his condition.  He thought back to his Commander’s reluctant promise to practice sparring with him and decided that would be the most pleasurable way to increase his activity.  He asked EDI where the Commander was.

 

“Commander Shepard is currently exercising in the hangar bay, Mr. Krios,” she answered.  

 

His initial surprise led to a smile.  “Who else is with her, EDI?”

 

“She is alone.”

 

Even better, he thought as he headed toward the elevator.  He wasn’t sure exactly what it was he felt for the human Commander.  She constantly surprised him with her unpredictability.  She could go from fiery anger to an icy command that stilled the most unruly member of her crew in a heartbeat.  Her skills on the battlefield were superb, and yet she seemed to enjoy seeking out his company to talk about esoteric topics such as religion, philosophy, and history.  She was nothing like the hard-nosed, narrow-minded soldier he had initially expected when he met her in Dantius Tower.  She had drawn more of his personal history from him than anyone since Irikah.  She had even diverted from their mission to help him save Kolyat, and for that alone, he would devote his skills and even his life to her cause.  She stirred something in him that had been sleeping for many, many years, and to his surprise, he was happy about it.

 

The noise penetrated the elevator even before the doors opened.  He stepped out into a wall of furious music that pounded painfully against his eardrums.  Shepard was boxing against a large hanging bag.  She hadn’t heard him come in.  Given the noise level in the hangar bay, he doubted she could hear a troop of elcor cavalry go by.

 

He leaned back against the bulkhead and just watched her, assessing her style.  She was dressed in skin tight shorts and a midriff-baring top, and her hair, normally left to fall to her shoulders, was pulled back into a sleek ponytail.  He let his gaze roam over her body.  Alien, and yet not so different from drell.  Curves that were typical of human females, but they weren't as exaggerated as Miranda's, and he could appreciate the solid muscles that rippled under the skin.  This was the first time he'd ever seen her without armor or a uniform of some sort on. He was intrigued to see that the scarring wasn't limited to her face.  Pale scars covered her entire body, white against her flushed skin.  Under some of the scars he could see orange glows from her cybernetics.  In a way, they reminded him of the markings typical of drell, except not as much contrast.  Her skin was a study in subtle contrasts, and he spent some time tracing how her scars interconnected.

 

It didn’t take long for him to deduce that she wasn’t there to actually practice anything; she was boxing as a form of stress relief.  There was no elegance in her form, nothing to indicate that she was giving thought to the movements or placement of her blows.  This was simply brutal carnage inflicted on an inanimate object in lieu of her real target.  He rather suspected he knew the identity of the one to whom her anger was directed, and a few minutes later, his guess was confirmed when he heard her yell “Stupid idiotic turian!”  She must have been angrier than he’d originally guessed though, because a few minutes later, she ripped the bag from its mooring using her biotics.  He also glimpsed a pain in her that he sensed she always kept hidden from others.  

 

He was impressed with the precision of her biotic attack compared with the sloppiness of her physical ones, and wondered if her biotics training had been much harsher than her physical training.  It seemed likely, given how rare biotics were in every race except the asari.  Most races feared biotics and tended to treat them harshly, forcing a strict discipline in them concerning their use.  His own training had been extremely harsh in every aspect, but it had resulted in very strict discipline and superb results in terms of fighting prowess.

 

Time to see if she would accept his offer of training.  It might even get her mind off what was upsetting her.  “Feel better?” he called, raising his voice to be heard over the pounding music.  When she raised her biotics against him, he tensed, ready to spring out of the way, but outwardly he gave away nothing but the same calm confidence he always carried.  

 

He sought to recall her to their conversation in the med bay several days ago.  “I thought this might be a good time to work on your hand to hand skills, Shepard.  While no one would dispute your strength, your finesse still leaves something to be desired.”  

 

She grudgingly agreed, and he took off his coat as he followed her to the sparring area.  He saw her eyes flicker over his body.  This was the first time he’d ever removed his coat while in her company, but given her lack of armor, he didn’t feel it fair to keep his coat on.  She wasn’t even wearing shoes.  She looked so much smaller without her armor on, but the look on her face was absolutely blank.  She was assessing him as an opponent.  He preferred to attack from the shadows as opposed to this face to face sparring, but he knew how to shake an opponent and gain an advantage.  He let his calm deepen and simply waited.   

 

Shepard didn’t take the bait right away.  She stood there, balanced on the balls of her feet, hands slightly away from her sides, watching him.  The brief break had given her a chance to catch her breath.  Thane had the sudden unsettling feeling that she was mimicking him, studying his style as opposed to simply attacking in her own.  Still, he had a vast amount of patience, and he was rewarded when she moved first.

 

There was no warming up, no feeling out period.  She attacked full speed and lightning fast with a jab to his face followed immediately with a roundhouse kick to his head, obviously trying to force him off balance and to the side.  He deflected both easily, redirecting her movement as he spun in closer and jabbed an elbow in her stomach.  She turned as well, so that his elbow skidded off.  Shepard glided backward, keeping him away with a front kick.  

 

He could feel the anger that still fueled her.  This was no friendly match.  She was looking for an opportunity to take out her frustration, and he had volunteered.  That anger made her blind, though.  She overreached, put herself off balance occasionally.  He used the opportunity to glide in close and strike.  He managed to land several heavy blows to her midsection, but to his surprise, they barely staggered her.  And she was astonishingly fast to respond.  After the first few blows got through, she adjusted her speed and was able to block most of the rest.

 

He had fought and killed many humans in his time.  He knew their weaknesses, their strengths.  He knew what Shepard should be capable of, but she was doing far, far more than he expected.  Granted that she was taller and more muscular than the average human female, but she was showing a strength that put most human males to shame.  And her reflexes were nearly as fast as his.  Alliance gene mods, his brain flashed in a brief second.  Common in human soldiers.  Obviously, she’d been modified for fighting.  She wasn’t as clean and quick as she could be, though.  Time and again, she would block, but it would be a shade slow, or her punch wouldn’t line up correctly and lack power.  They were small things, and she was holding her own against him, but he could feel that she was growing angrier every time he got through her defenses.

 

They traded blows and kicks for a few more seconds.  Shepard used her feet almost as much as her hands, and they gave her a much longer reach.  Once she lined everything up perfectly and snapped a side kick right when he couldn’t avoid it.  Thane grunted with the impact, knowing it would leave a bruise tomorrow.  

 

Thane passed up on a few opportunities to strike, because they would have been too similar to a lethal blow and he couldn’t take the chance that he would inadvertently hurt her.  He saw an opening and closed with her, ready to put her in a headlock and force her arm behind her.  Too late, he saw the flare of biotic energy and felt himself thrown backward across the space.

 

With inhuman grace, he spun and righted himself in the air, landing on both feet with knees bent.  Immediately, he adjusted his assessment of her.  She had changed the rules by adding biotics to the fight, and that throw had almost as much strength as many asari he had matched.  He would have to change his strategy.  

 

Instead of coming directly at her as before, he started circling, forcing her to turn constantly.  It also put her more on the defensive, which actually allowed her to use her biotics more.  She limited it to throws, for which he spared a second of thanks.  He had no desire to spend the energy to ward off multiple warp attacks.  He refused to retaliate in kind, though.  His specialty was truly hand to hand, and he saved his biotic attacks for groups of enemies, so that he could take them out one by one.

 

On one attack, Shepard moved a little too slowly, and Thane was able to close.  He grabbed her right wrist with the intent of twisting her arm behind her body, both cutting off her biotic use and forcing her to the ground.  She immediately pulled against his grip, and when she couldn’t pull her wrist completely free, she rolled onto her back, planted her bare feet into his solar plexus and flipped him over, while at the same time jerking her wrist into the weak spot of his grip where the thumb and fingers came together.  She kipped back to her feet and spun around to face him. Thane again twisted and landed in a wide crouch.  The air reeked with the bitter scent of ozone from the dark energy of biotics as he drew himself up and studied the Commander.  

 

There were more evenly matched that he had expected.  Every time he got close, she pushed him backward with her biotics, but he was better able to switch tactics, close in and deliver a stinging blow before she threw him back.  And all the biotic attacks were taking their toll on Shepard.  She was visibly tiring, and her reactions were slowing.  Thane noticed in a small corner of his mind that some of the scars on her face and body were glowing orange, and her eyes had a reddish glow, but he couldn’t spare any thought as to what caused the changes.   

 

 _Now_ , he thought.   _This is the time to end it._  Body and mind were honed to a knife edge, and as quickly as he thought it, his body reacted.

* * *

Shepard’s mind screamed, _‘Fuck me!_ ’ when she first closed with the assassin.  She remembered reading that drell had denser muscles than humans, but in their first impact, that little fact suddenly crystallized into meaning.  He hit like a freight train, and hitting him back was akin to beating on a steel girder.  She switched martial arts styles to one more flowing, meaning to redirect his attacks instead of taking the brunt of it on her arms and legs.  Ribs, too.  She kept her face absolutely blank, letting no sign of the pain building in her body show on her face.  But her body was betraying her.  She still didn’t have the fine control that had been second nature to her.  The moves that had been drilled into her over years of boot camp and N training were dulled.  

 

 _It isn’t fair_ , her mind complained.   _One more thing that’s wrong in your world, one more sign that you’re not who you used to be._  She deflected a punch heading for her head and turned her momentum into a spinning kick aimed right back at him.  He dodged like smoke, but at least he pulled back for a second.   _Get your head in the game, Shep, or he’ll wipe the floor with you.  No, he won’t!  God, I’m arguing with myself in the middle of a fucking fight!  I’m losing it!_

 

He was too close again, green fist headed in for another punishing blow, and without even thinking about it, she charged her biotics and threw him backward against the wall.  What she saw next was the most amazing physical move she had ever seen in her life.  Thane simply pulled his legs in and rotated in the air, landing with the grace and silence of a cat.  There was no stumbling or wind milling to catch his balance, just a perfect three point landing like something out of an action vid.  She checked to see if her mouth was hanging open.   _Mother of god, he’s gorgeous in action!_  

 

She shook the inappropriate thought out of her head and waited to see if he’d retaliate with his own biotic attack.  From what she’d seen, he knew the same moves, but his biotics were slightly less powerful than hers.  Instead, he came at her from the side, clearly meaning to pin her arm and take her biotic attacks away.   _Uh uh, mister_.  She switched tactics to match, using her biotics more freely now to throw him back anytime he got close.  

 

Shepard managed to keep him away for quite a while, even landing a few solid blows on the assassin in the process.  The match had gone on long enough to drain her anger, and now she fought for the sheer thrill of it, for the competition, and because she would never back down from a challenge.  He was damn fast, she’d give him that.  But she thought she might be getting a handle on his style.  She briefly thought about sweeping his legs, but just as quickly dismissed it.  With his superior strength, she didn’t want to grapple with him on the floor. _Bodies intertwined, sweat-slicked skin moving against light green scales, still striving to see who can get the upper hand, crushing her mouth against his perfect lips, his hand grabbing a fist full of her hair, his lips running down her throat..._

 

Crap!  Where did that thought come from?  It drove a spike of heat down from her belly and she gasped.  She lost her concentration for a split second, and that’s when Thane struck.  He lunged to her left and belatedly she spun toward him to block the attack she knew would be coming.  Except it was a feint, and in another superhuman move, he reversed direction and flipped up and landed directly behind her. Before she could react, he jabbed stiff fingers into either side of her spine, just above her pelvis.  Her legs went wobbly, and she felt him slam an open palm into her back, sending her tumbling awkwardly to the deck.  She put her arms out to break her fall, and the second she touched the deck, Thane was on her.  One knee was in the small of her back, and he grabbed both wrists and twisted them painfully behind her back.

 

Shepard yelled in anger and tried to twist her hips to throw him off, but without any leverage from her legs, it was impossible.  Thane pulled up on her arms in warning, showing her that he could dislocate her shoulders easily in this position.  With a defeated groan, she dropped her head to the cold deck and let the tension drain out of her body.

 

Thane immediately released his grip on her wrists and moved to sit on the floor next to her.

 

Shepard groaned as she rolled her shoulders and tucked her arms under her.  She couldn’t move her legs and had to settle for glaring up at him.  “That was a low blow.  How long’s it going to take for feeling to come back to my legs?”

 

“Just a few minutes.”  There was a brief pause.  “You’re not as rusty as you led me to believe,” he told her.

 

She snorted.  “Just because I prefer to push my enemies back and kill them at a distance, don’t assume that’s all I ever learned.  N training is a bitch, and we trained hand to hand every day in it.”  She pillowed her head on her arms. “But you’re right.  I am rusty.  Things just aren’t clicking like they should.  Besides, don’t think I didn’t notice you pulling some punches.”  

 

“You were unarmored.  I did not wish to cause permanent damage,” he rumbled.

 

"The Savior of the Citadel thanks you for that," she drawled sarcastically.  Privately, she was pleased.  She hadn’t thought she would last as long as she did against him, even if he was pulling some punches.  "Next time I spar with you, I'm going to sew armor plates to my shirt to keep you from doing that again."

 

Thane smiled, as much as he ever did.  "That would first require you to wear a shirt that actually covered your midsection,” he pointed out.  “Besides, I would just find another pressure point to attack.  You would have to be in full armor to block most of them."  

 

Shepard contemplated that.  The odds of coming up against another assassin were low, but then again, given her life and record, it was practically guaranteed to happen tomorrow.  That prompted her to ask, "Where?"

 

Thane blinked both sets of eyelids and focused on her face.  He had been staring at her body, and she wondered if he had been lost in a memory.  "Where what?"

 

"Where else would you get me?"

 

He stretched out one hand and lightly touched her back, just beneath her shoulder blades.  "Here.  It would hurt, and it would render your arm immobile for a short time."  He walked his fingers down her spine, touching each protuberance of her vertebrae.  "Any of these, especially with an elbow strike, would cause crippling pain."

 

Shepard couldn’t stop the shiver that passed through her as he brushed his fingers over her bare back.  Was there something wrong with her, that she was getting turned on when he was talking about inflicting pain?  Or was it just the way his fingertips drifted over her slick skin?  
  
Thane continued as he pressed on the spots he had just attacked, "I think I've demonstrated these points quite effectively, but a hard strike on the spine here can cause easily snap the back in humans and asari.  And of course, a kick to the hamstrings will cause the target's muscle to seize up painfully."  Sensation was starting to return to her legs, and she was inordinately glad, because it meant she could feel his rough hands gliding down her hamstring.

 

"With armor, assuming you weren't wearing a helmet, and you usually don't, I could render you unconscious by striking you here, here or here."  His fingers brushed against her temple, her jaw and her upper lip.  "Really, you should consider wearing a helmet instead of a visor in the field.  Especially since you insist on charging headlong into the midst of the battle."  

 

Oh holy hell.  It took everything she had not to close her eyes and lean into his touch, and there was no way she could keep her breathing from speeding up again.  Thane’s touch was reminding her very painfully that she hadn’t felt another’s touch in nearly six months, subjective time.  Thane was everything she found attractive.  He was intelligent, physically gorgeous, strong in his convictions, a deadly fighter, even his spirituality tugged at her, and when he talked, his voice felt like rough silk to her ears.

 

 _Keep it together, Shep,_ she told herself.   _You don’t even know if he’s interested.  He might still be pining for his wife, he may think humans are too weird for sex.  Wait a minute, who mentioned sex!_  She groaned and dropped her head to the deck, breaking eye contact with the glorious drell sitting next to her.

 

She had to come up with something to say that would distract her from her thoughts.  "Seems to me that you've proven my point that the best strategy is to keep my opponent far away from me.”

 

"And I think I've proven mine that you can never keep them all away.  Eventually, someone will get close to you."

 

"Bad thing happen when people get too close to me," she whispered.  "Both to them and to me."

 

"You're a dangerous woman, Shepard.  It would take someone special to stand up to you."

 

She looked up again and was lost in his large black eyes.  Were they still talking about fighting?  “That’s why I stand alone.  The only one I can count on is myself.”  

 

“What about Garrus?” he asked softly.

  
She tilted her head to the side, then gave a miniscule nod.  “Garrus, Tali, Wrex.  You’re right.  I can count on them.  We went through hell together chasing Saren, and we were all there for each other.”  She winced as she remembered Ashley and Kaidan.  One she’d left behind to die, and the other had proven he was more concerned with his honor than with the team they’d built during that mission, or the relationship she thought they’d had.  “But Tali and Wrex have moved on, and Garrus is being an asshole right now.”

 

"You did the right thing for him, siha."  Thane's words dropped into the quiet between them like pebbles in a still pond.  "Killing in anger, for vengeance, is not something to be undertaken lightly.  It leaves a darkness on your soul that can never be erased."

 

She could hear the regret in his voice as she considered her answer.  “There’s too much darkness on Garrus’ soul already, and I’m responsible for a lot of it.  If there was any way to keep him from adding to it, then I had to do it.  He was so in awe of me when we met.”  A very small smile touched her lips as she thought back.  “Well, maybe it was more the Spectre status than me, personally.  He had such a strong sense of justice, but he was impatient with the rules and regs.  So was I, and when they appointed me Spectre, it felt so liberating.  Just do what had to be done and don’t worry about the consequences.

 

"That Dr. Saleon that Garrus mentioned?  He had been running illegal experiments on his patients, growing extra organs inside them.  Most of them died.  They all suffered.  Garrus got wind of where Saleon ended up, and we tracked him down on a freighter.  We found him, confronted him.  He tried to lie, but eventually admitted it.  Garrus asked permission, and I gave it.  No, I encouraged him to take the shot.  Garrus shot him in the chest, and we walked away.  If anyone else had done it, it would have been murder.  Because he did it with a Spectre’s blessing, it was justice.  I wonder if that act was what set him on the path to Omega, to becoming Archangel.  He’s walked a long way down a dark path, and I thought he was coming back to the light until this whole episode with Sidonis.  Now, I don’t know what to do to get him to talk to me again.  I’m worried about him.”

 

“You care deeply for him.”  Thane said it as a statement, but she heard a hint of questioning in there.  Did he wonder if there was something between her and Garrus?

 

“He’s my best friend, a brother even.  He was with me when we went after Saren.  He’s saved my butt more times than I can count, and I’ve saved his.  We like the same music and movies.  We fight well together.  I nearly lost him on Omega, and I vowed I wouldn’t let that happen again.  He was there for me to talk to after Cerberus resurrected me.  He let me know that I really was the same Shepard.”  Her voice caught in her throat as she thought about that dark time, wondering if she was really herself, or just a sophisticated VI thinking it was Shepard.  Dealing with the memory losses hadn’t helped either.  But he’d stayed by her side, listening to her pour her soul out over endless glasses of cheap alcohol and matching her dextro shot for levo shot.   “And he was there after Horizon, when Kaidan...” she ran out of words.  She still couldn’t put into words how horrible Kaidan’s repudiation had made her feel.  “I’d do anything to take care of him.  He is special to me, in a way I can never replace.  My world would be a lot darker without him.”  She looked over at Thane, still watching her with those unfathomable black eyes.  “Still doesn’t mean I won’t beat his head into that cannon if he doesn’t get over his snit.”

 

She tried to move her legs again, and this time they twitched reluctantly at her command.  Thane reached out a hand to help her sit up, and she took it gratefully.  

 

“So was it just Garrus who so aroused your anger today?  Your display seemed very extreme for a temporary falling out with a friend.”

 

Shepard’s eyes narrowed.  “No, it wasn’t just Garrus.  It just brought up some painful memories.”  She was normally a very private person, but something about Thane, the calm he exuded, or the non-judgmental way he asked questions, encouraged her to open up in a way she hadn’t to anyone except Garrus.  She was feeling off-balance without being able to talk to her friend the last few days, and that was making her realize how much she craved the company of someone she could trust.  

 

Her mind went back to Horizon.  Garrus and Mordin had accompanied her, and she knew that Mordin would be disinterested in gossiping about the fight between her and Kaidan, and Garrus would have her six.  He wouldn’t talk about it to the rest of the crew, either.  So she was reasonably sure that Thane hadn’t heard the details.  Kaidan’s betrayal had been eating a hole in her heart, and it was so tempting to confess the pain and uncertainty to Thane.  He was so calm, never judging.  She opened her mouth, but the words wouldn’t come.  To speak them would have been to relive the hurt all over again, and she wasn’t ready for that.  She shook her head and lurched unsteadily to her feet.  

 

Thane was right beside her, putting a steadying hand on her back.

 

She looked out over the hangar bay while her mind pushed the hurtful memories away.  She focused on the present and on the new crew she was building.  Taking a deep breath, she stood up straight and said, “It’s old history now and irrelevant to the mission.  I won’t let it interfere with what we need to do.”

 

Thane turned to face her.  “Siha, you can count on me.  No matter what trials await us, I have seen your soul.  It burns bright with the desire and intention to protect others.  When we first met, I offered you my arm.  Now, by the grace you’ve bestowed by restoring my son to me, I offer you everything I am for as long as I may.”

 

Shepard’s breath caught in her throat as she looked into his eyes.  The intensity of his gaze burned into her very being, and she had no doubt that he meant exactly what he said.  Here was someone she could always count on, who would never turn his back and walk away.  She recognized the kindred spirit in him, that once he committed to something, nothing would turn him from his path.  It was like a balm to the pain she had been carrying for so many months.  Even now, she could feel the pain washing away in the strength of his conviction.  Reaching out, she grabbed his hand and held on tightly.  In a voice rough with overwhelming emotion and unshed tears, she whispered, “Thank you, Thane.”

 


	7. Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard confronts the fact that the Lazarus Projects wasn't 100% successful. Thane takes matters into his own hands regarding Shepard and Garrus' falling out.

Shepard escaped to the safety of her cabin.  Her thoughts were still whirling from her sparring match with Thane.  Okay, so she’d thought he was intriguing from the minute she’d seen him in action at Dantius Towers, but apparently, she was a lot more interested than she’d thought considering the unexpected erotic thoughts that had floored her in the middle of her match with the assassin.  Just remembering it made her stomach flip and brought a wave of warmth through her belly and dropping down to her groin.  Just for a moment, in the privacy of her room, she allowed her thoughts to roam free.  

  


Thane’s body was dense and muscular.  His every movement spoke of supreme confidence in his physical prowess, and she was still in awe of his speed and agility.  His lips were full and sensuous, and she was suddenly desperate to hear his voice whispering in her ear.  She wondered if his scaled skin was rough, or if he was warmer or cooler than her own skin.  She imagined his arms holding her tight against his chest, running over her stomach and her breasts, then down her legs.  She thought about his weight crushing down on her as she wrapped her legs around his waist.

  


Shepard sucked her breath in and realized she’d been running her own hand over her stomach.  She dropped it as if her skin were on fire and headed for the shower.  Maybe a cold shower would cool these inappropriate thoughts.  

  


She planted her hands on the shower wall and ducked her head under the shower to watch the water flow over her skin.  Her cybernetics had cooled down enough that her skin was no longer glowing orange over them, but her body was completely covered with a fine tracery of scars, both from the cybernetic implants and from the explosion that had killed her.  She thought back to her sparring match with Thane and her aborted session with the punching bag.  Her reflexes were off, and she wondered what else was wrong.  Closing her eyes, she stretched her hands overhead then slowly raised one leg to balance on the other.  Three seconds later, she toppled over and nearly crashed into the shower wall.  She huffed out her breath and tried again, with the same results.  She tried variation after variation of balance poses, but she couldn’t maintain a single one longer than five seconds.  Finally she collapsed back against the shower wall.  She ground the palms of her hands into her eyes and held onto her calm with grim determination.  She wouldn’t scream, and she wouldn’t cry, but something was seriously wrong.  For a woman who’d built her entire life on physical perfection and superb fighting skills, this struck at her very core.  

  


She could no longer ignore the fact that Cerberus hadn’t completely succeeded when they had brought her back.  Her sparring match with Thane had been the final proof that she wasn’t firing on all cylinders.  

  


As she got dressed, she saw the bruises already forming on her arms and legs.  At least she was fairly sure that Thane would have his own collection of bruises, and that made her wonder what color they would be.  She pulled on the uniform with long sleeves and gloves.  It wasn’t her normal choice of outfits, but she had to keep up the appearance of the indomitable Commander Shepard, and appearing covered in black and blue bruises would take away from her mystique.  

  


She headed down to Miranda’s office.  Without any preliminaries, she sank into the chair in front of Miranda’s desk and said, “There’s something wrong with me.  My body’s not performing the way it used to.  Before I died,” she clarified.

  


The brunette frowned as she looked up.  “Can you be more specific, Shepard?”

  


“Reaction time is off.  Slowed nerve response.  Balance is shot.  My biotics are stronger than they ever were, but when it comes to purely physical responses, something’s not working.”  Shepard sat back.

  


Miranda frowned and leaned back in her chair, giving the Commander a long measuring look.  “We did wake you up earlier than I wanted to.  I was afraid there might be some issues in the integration process.  Frankly, I’m surprised you didn’t have problems sooner.”

  


Shepard rolled her eyes.  “Nice of you to give me a heads up, Miranda.  Might have been nice to know I wasn’t playing with a full deck before I placed my bets.”

  


“Settle down, Shepard.  I knew you were close to optimal, or I wouldn’t have let you step foot on Omega in the first place.  It’s probably related to your cybernetics not fully integrating with your nervous system.  Let me run a couple of tests to be sure, but I can make the adjustments here on the Normandy.  It shouldn’t take more than a couple of days.”

  


Shepard growled softly.  “We’re scheduled to dock at Illium tomorrow and go looking for that Justicar.”

  


Miranda stood up and headed out the door.  “I worked a miracle bringing you back from the dead, Shepard.  Give me a couple more days to finish the process.  Even I can’t snap my fingers and make everything perfect right away.”

  


As hard as she tried, Shepard couldn’t keep from rolling her eyes behind Miranda’s back as she followed the woman to Med Bay.  She tried to follow the technical jargon between Miranda and Chakwas, but it quickly devolved into talks of implants, cybernetics, and chemical inhibitors.  When they added neural pathways to the mix, Chakwas insisted on bringing Mordin in to consult.  Shepard submitted to the various scans, and in between, she used her omni tool to consult with EDI on ideas for improving their resource scanning.  She was still trying to find a xenogeologist to help with the process, which was so tedious for Shepard that she would rather go ten rounds with a krogan than scan another planet.   _Or ten rounds with a certain sexy drell who just happened to be only a few feet away in Life Support_ , her mind whispered.  She hoped she wasn’t blushing.

  


She brought her attention back when she heard Miranda talk about installing a new piece of equipment in the med bay.  “What’s that?” she asked.

  


Miranda answered.  “I can get the plans from the Lazarus Project for the neural integrator.  It’s as I thought, your cybernetics haven’t quite synched up with your nervous system.  It was the last step in Lazarus, but unfortunately, we were interrupted.”

  


Chakwas added, “It will have the additional benefit of healing and thickening the skin over your cybernetics.  It won’t erase all your scars, but you’ll stop glowing orange every time you fight or get angry.”

  


Shepard wasn’t normally a vain person, but every time she caught sight of her skin glowing orange, it creeped her out.  “So what’s the down side?”

  


“Will require substantial quantities of platinum for instrumentation,” Mordin told her.  “However, Cerberus cybernetic techniques evidenced in you, Shepard, are unmatched by any others in galaxy.  Doubtful anything else can correct deficiencies.”

  


“That true, Miranda?  Is there any other way to correct the...deficiencies?”

  


Miranda lifted one shoulder in an elegant shrug.  “We went into new territory when we rebuilt you.  Perhaps, with time and training, your nervous system will adapt to the cybernetics on their own, but that isn’t how we designed the system to work.  The cybernetics were intended to meld into your nervous system completely and provide the support needed.  Obviously, they still need some work.”

  


Shepard nodded as she jumped down from the bed.  “Do it,” she ordered.  “Miranda, let me know when it’s ready.”

  


Her feet wanted to take her to Life Support, but her head overruled.  After their tumultuous sparring match and heart to heart talk, Thane had offered to help her improve her unarmed combat.  Without the anger in the way, she was able to agree that she needed help, so she accepted, on the condition that they start tomorrow.  She needed time to cool off physically as well as emotionally.  She had to figure out how to keep her mind out of the gutter when she was around Thane.

  


She should probably talk to Garrus, and force him to confront both her and the issue of Sidonis.  She’d let it fester long enough.  She squared her shoulders and headed around the corner to the battery.  As usual the last couple days, the doors were closed, but Shepard wasn’t going to let that stop her.  She walked up and was just about to press the button for the door when she heard voices from the other side.  She caught Garrus’ flanging voice.  He sounded agitated, but she couldn’t make out the words.  The other speaker was much quieter, and all she could get through the doors was a faint hint that it was a lower tone, so probably one of the males on the ship.

  


Shepard wasn’t going to interrupt whatever was going on in there.  If Garrus was worked up over something already, there was nothing she could say or do right now that wouldn’t add fuel to the fire.  She turned around and walked slowly down the hallway.  At the top of the steps, she paused and looked thoughtfully at Sgt. Gardener.  

  


“Sergeant, do you happen to know who’s in the main battery with Garrus?”

  


“Oh, aye, ma’am.  It’s that assassin fellow.  He headed in there a few minutes after you went into Miranda’s office.  Looked like he had something on his mind.  Been keeping an ear out for any sudden crashes, but it’s been quiet.  Guess they just had something to talk about.”

  


Shepard thanked him and wandered off.  Mysteries appealed to her, and she knew she’d wrack her brain trying to figure out what they had to say to each other, unless she could get one of them to confess.  She had a feeling she could crack the turian easier than the drell, but for now, it would have to wait.  

  


Her restless feet carried her down to the engineering deck.  She didn’t really feel like going toe to toe with Grunt right now considering that her bruises were just starting to stiffen up.  She offered to set up a poker game with Ken and Gabby, but they claimed they had a pressure imbalance to fix.  She suspected they just didn’t feel like losing against her again.  She couldn’t help it.  She played to win every time, no matter what the game.

  


Somewhat to her surprise, she ended up in Jack’s hidey hole.  Apparently, Jack had been busy lately redecorating.  Graffiti covered the walls, with a huge ‘ _Fuck Cerberus_ ’ smack in the middle of the wall opposite her bunk.  No surprise there.  “What’s up, Jack?”

  


“Same old, same old, Shepard.  You trying to make nice again?” the tiny woman asked with a sneer.  

  


“Not particularly.  Just checking in on my crew.  I do that, you know.  Want to make sure you’re not going to turn into a time bomb and blow out the Normandy’s drive core.”

  


Jack wrinkled her nose and kicked her feet up on her cot.  “Give me some credit, Shepard.  I’m not going to do anything that’s against my own self-interest, and getting marooned in deep space with you lot would definitely be bad for me.”

  


“Oh, I suppose we could always pass the time playing Skyllian Five,” Shepard offered.  Anything to break the boredom, and she hadn’t managed to get Jack into a game yet, so Jack shouldn’t know that Shepard was an expert player.  It was the main way that marines passed the time in space, and every one of them was a cutthroat player.  Jack’s next words deflated Shepard’s balloon, though.

  


“Ha!  I heard about you from your greasemonkeys upstairs.  You took them for a week’s worth of pay last time you played.  They groused about it for two days.”  Jack rolled her eyes and waved dismissively at the ceiling.  “You keep quiet down here, and they forget you’re here.  Don’t realize how well sound travels through the duct work.  I hear all sorts of interesting things down here.”

  


“Oh, really?  Care to enlighten me?”  Now Shepard was curious.

  


“Aside from the fact that Ken and Gabby really need to get a room soon, you mean?”  

  


“I don’t think that’s much of a secret, Jack.”

  


“I know you have crappy taste in music, Shepard.”  Jack flicked her fingers contemptuously in her direction.

  


Shepard raised her eyebrows and stepped back on one leg, arms crossed over her chest.  “And how do you come to that conclusion?”

  


“I heard the music pounding up through the hangar bay this morning.  I asked EDI who was responsible for playing that ancient scream fest, and she told me it was you.  She then gave over your whole workout playlist when I asked.   Mercury Scythe is so over, Shepard.  You’re outta date.”  

  


Shepard couldn’t tell if Jack’s look was pitying or dismissive.  “Hey, they’re top of the charts.”

  


“Were, Shepard.  Operative word there is were.  Catch up to the present.”

  


“I’ve been a little out of touch with pop culture, Jack.  Finding new music hasn’t exactly been at the top of my to do list.”

  


“Well, crap, being dead’s no excuse for listening to shitty music like that.  I’ll pass my music on through EDI, and you can use that next time you beat the crap out of a harmless old punching bag.  At least then I won’t have to listen to your out of date shit.”

  


Shepard wondered if she was going to have to have a talk with EDI about privacy.  “EDI tell you that, too?”

  


“Nope.  Heard it from one of your greasemonkeys when they got back from fixing it up.  Complaining about krogans and psychotic biotics and now even the fucking Commander was trying to punch holes in the ship from the inside.”  Jack was grinning savagely.  “So, still pissed at your turian bro?”

  


“How did you...”  Shepard bit her tongue.  Even though the SR2 was Cerberus and civilian instead of military, it appeared that gossip traveled just as fast.  “Let’s just say that Garrus and I need to have a talk and leave it at that.”

  


“Sure, and I’m the Pope.  Dino boy hasn’t stuck his snout out of the main battery since you guys got back from the Citadel, and you’ve been visiting everyone except him.  Thought you two were soul mates or something up til now, the way you always hang out.  What’s the matter?  He piss in your cornflakes?”  Jack chuckled at her own joke.

  


Shepard lifted her eyes to the ceiling to look for inspiration in dealing with the most difficult member of her crew.  At least with Grunt, she could have head butted him.  Jack would be more likely to biotically swat her across the room.  “Hardly."  She sighed.  "Look, Jack, he's going through a rough patch right now.”  She held up a hand to forestall Jack’s inevitable protest about her past.  “Right, I know, nothing like what you went through, but he's got a lot to deal with.  You wouldn't want me gossiping about you to everyone else, so don't ask me what Garrus' problem is, okay?"

  


Jack rolled her eyes.  "Gotta be the goody two shoes, huh, Shepard?"

  


She couldn't resist tweaking Jack just a little.  "Only to irritate you, Jack," she said with a laugh.

  


Jack snarled and the room flared blue as the tiny woman used her biotics to pick up and hurl a wrench at Shepard's head.  Shepard's own biotics answered and batted the wrench to the side.  It fell to the deck plates with a loud clang.  "Get out of my space, Shepard," Jack growled.  

  


Shepard shrugged and turned toward the stairs.  "It's your space, Jack.  Just remember, you're part of my crew, just as much as Garrus, Mordin, or Joker.  I have your back, too."  She didn't hear a reply, but figured that was an improvement.  Jack hadn't actively been trying to hurt her when she threw the wrench, and the amount of swearing had even gone down in the last few weeks.  She didn't think the young woman would ever be her friend, but she wanted Jack to know that she really would do anything to help and protect her, just like any other member of her crew.

  


When Shepard got back to her cabin, she had a pleasant surprise.  EDI announced, "You have new music waiting in your library, Shepard, courtesy of Jack."  She laughed in delight and checked to see if the tattooed waif had included anything else.  There were a dozen new albums, all by bands she'd never heard of, and a note from Jack that read, _"Drop the goody two shoe act and loosen up.  Maybe you'd be worth hanging out with then."_   Shepard smiled and nodded to Jack in absentia.  "Deal."

* * *

 

Thane thought about his conversation with Shepard as he returned to Life Support.  He had only known Shepard for a couple of months, but already she was changing him in ways he’d thought impossible.  Before the Dantius contract, he’d been going through the motions of life, resigned to his impending death, if not totally at peace with it.  But in only a few short weeks, she had upended beliefs he’d held for years.  She had pulled him into her life and integrated him into her crew before he even realized what was happening.  For the first time, he was working with a team instead of as a solitary operator, and he found himself enjoying it.  For all their quirks, the people that Shepard had recruited were the very best in the galaxy, and every one of them had fallen into her orbit, just as he had.

  


Because of Shepard, he and Kolyat were speaking again and that alone was enough to inspire his dedication to her, body and soul.  He had never thought he would see or speak to his son again, but now they were exchanging messages and had even shared a meal together the last time the Normandy was docked at the Citadel.  Their relationship was still strained, but they were both trying to get over the hurt and betrayals of the past.  Every time he thought on it, it seemed a miracle.  Truly, she was one of Arashu’s own, guiding and protecting those in her care.  

  


But even more than that, he found himself fascinated by the Commander.  She spoke with a quiet authority, but when she wanted to, she could command everyone’s attention in the room just in the way she held herself.  On the battlefield, she could assess the situation and take life and death decisions in a heartbeat, making the most economical use of every asset at her disposal, willing or not.  She knew precisely how much damage she could take and purposefully set herself up as the focal point for firefights, allowing her support fighters to deal excruciating damage to their opponents.  Too often, he caught himself wanting to push her out of the line of fire as her shields fizzled out, but she always managed to find cover in the nick of time, waiting for her shields to recharge, and then bursting back out to distract the enemy.

  


And yet, she was equally comfortable talking religion and philosophy with him or sports with Jacob.  She genuinely cared about everyone in her crew, down to the cook.  In his time on the Normandy, he’d witnessed small but noticeable changes in the crew.  They were coming together as a family, not just people with a dangerous job to do.  That was entirely Shepard’s doing.  She inspired them all to be greater than they thought they could.

  


She had woken him out of his battlesleep, Thane admitted to himself.  He cared again.  He cared about Kolyat and found himself eagerly waiting for his son’s next message.  He cared about the strange crew he was part of.  Most of all, he cared about Shepard, his siha.  He’d tried to fight it.  He should not be looking for any companionship beyond that of battlefield brethren, but his soul refused to listen to his head.  Thane found himself craving Shepard’s visits almost as much as his son’s letters.  Almost against his will, he found reasons to talk to her, to sit beside her at mealtimes, or to let his hands brush against her.  Their sparring match earlier today had been delightful, not just in the fierce competition that she always brought, but the excuses to brush against her skin, to actually touch that delicate porcelain skin.  Humans looked so fragile, unlike any other species.  They didn't have the height and speed of turians, the sheer mass and resilience of krogans, the biotic strength of asari.  Even compared to his own people, they seemed so frail.  Shepard’s skin was so pale that he could see the veins carrying her life-sustaining blood.  Yet weak and fragile were words he would never use to describe her.  The bruises on his side and legs were painful reminders that she was no ordinary human.

  


Great leaders became great because they could handle extraordinary stresses and burdens that most people couldn’t, and what he’d seen of Shepard convinced Thane that she would be one of those remembered by history.  Still, the burdens that fell on her were unprecedented.  She was carrying the hope of salvation not just for her crew, or for humanity, but for all races in the galaxy.  He’d studied the events at the Citadel from two years ago.  He was convinced that Sovereign was more than just a geth ship, and according to Shepard, there were hundreds more Reaper ships closing in from dark space.  The threat made drell history pale by comparison.  If they failed, it wouldn’t be just one race standing at the brink of extinction, but a dozen or more.  Given all that, if there was something he could do to reduce some of the problems facing her, he would gladly do it, which was why he was on his way to the Main Battery to confront Garrus.

  


Thane signaled for permission to enter the main battery.  "Go away," a deep voice growled through the door.  

  


"If you don't let me in through the door, I'll just come in through the vents," the assassin answered.

  


The doors slid open to reveal the turian working on the Thannix console, his back to the entryway.  “I didn’t want to talk to Shepard about it, and I want to talk to you even less, Krios.  It’s none of your business.  And I’ll weld the vent covers on as soon as you leave.”

  


EDI broke in.  “Welding the vent covers in place is a violation of operating and safety protocols, Officer Vakarian.”

  


“I don’t remember asking you, EDI.”  Garrus sighed and glared at Thane.  “What do you want?”

  


Thane walked up to the control panel and stood with his hands behind his back looking down the cannon’s length.  “Seeking vengeance for your loss is understandable, but ultimately self-destructive.”

  


Garrus flared his mandibles in anger and stalked around the cannon walkway to put some distance between them.  “I said I didn’t want to talk about it.  Besides, what do you know about it?  I appreciate your skills, Krios, but you’re an assassin.  That’s all you do, is kill.  It’s your victims who would be seeking vengeance, not you.”

  


Thane glanced away at a display panel.  When he answered, his voice was soft, forcing Garrus to listen carefully to catch the words.  “I had a wife, Mr. Vakarian.  One of my ‘victims’ did indeed seek out vengeance on me.  His associates killed her.”  

  


Garrus’ jaw dropped a little bit.  He’d chatted with Thane several times since Shepard had recruited the assassin, but now that he thought about it, Thane never spoke of his past.  Before he could speak, Thane continued.  His voice was low and completely devoid of inflection.  “I spent the next three years hunting down her killers.  I did what Shepard prevented you from doing.  I killed them, mercilessly and of my own free will.  I had no contract for them.  I did it because they had destroyed the only thing I cared about.  I started with the trigger men and worked my way up to the ones who ordered it.  When I was done, dozens of mercenaries were dead, but it didn’t bring back my Irikah.  I felt no relief or joy, only a pale sense of accomplishment.  They, at least, would kill no others, but my world was a dark and desolate place.  Having killed them, I had no other purpose in a life that would soon be over.  I can see their faces, remember the cruelties I inflicted to get the information I needed to reach their superiors.”  Thane fought off the memories that threatened to pull him under.  They were not memories he’d willingly relive again and certainly not in front of the turian.  

  


He turned and walked toward the turian lurking on the walkway between the cannon and the ship’s hull.  “In the end, it served no more purpose than would killing Sidonis.  His deed is done.  Dead, he cannot atone for his crime, and you would forever carry the scar of killing in cold blood.  Shepard understood.  That is why she intervened.  She cares for you and would not willingly see you take on such an affliction when it could be avoided.”

  


Garrus’ mind was in turmoil from Thane's revelations.   "Thane, I'm..."

  


Thane held up a hand to stop him.  "I neither want nor seek your sympathy.  I have long ago accepted the repercussions of my actions.  I tell you this only to make you understand that the pain you feel cannot be healed by the vengeance you sought."

  


Garrus gripped the handrail and stared at the floor.  He had already come to the grudging conclusion that Shepard was right, but he couldn’t figure out how to clear the slate with her, and now, it had apparently gotten so obvious that other people were trying to intervene.  One fact suddenly came to the fore from the swirling thoughts and emotions.  “Wait, she talked to you about me? About this?”

  


If the conversation hadn't been so serious, Thane might be amused.  He was quite familiar with turian body language, and Garrus was obviously trying to rearrange several facts in his head.  “I accompanied you on your mission to Sidonis, and she knew my history.  Oftentimes, it helps to have someone with whom to discuss problems.”  The thought lingered in Garrus’ mind that he had been just such a problem the last few days to the Commander, just as Thane intended it should.

  


Garrus turned away and walked to the end of the narrow path between the cannon and hull.  Shepard was always so private.  She rarely gossiped, knowing that a leader had to be above the normal gossip that went on among the crew, so as to give them the sense that she would keep their concerns private if they went to her.  To find out that she had shared her concerns about him with Thane was even more disturbing that learning about the drell’s history.  Either it meant that she trusted Thane enough to share her confidence, or that Garrus was causing her more grief than he had realized.  

  


Now that he thought about it, he realized that Shepard almost always consulted with him about the crew, usually in little things, when she visited.  But she hadn’t said one word to him since Sidonis.  He knew they were headed back to Ilium, but he wasn't sure exactly why.  He had never been so far out of Shepard's confidence, and he suddenly realized he was the one to blame for it.  And to be so easily replaced with the drell was another blow to his confidence.  

  


He took another look at Thane, seeing him anew, not just as a highly skilled triggerman, but noting the confident way he held himself.  He remembered Shepard coming and talking to him about Thane, concerned that he wasn't melding easily into the team she was building.  Garrus had pushed her to talk to him, draw him out.  It seemed that she was successful, and now she was talking to Thane about him.  If his thoughts hadn't been in such a spin, he might have appreciated the irony.  

  
Sensing the turian's inner turmoil, Thane decided he had made his point and turned to go.   "Good day, Mr. Vakarian."  The door slid shut behind him, and Garrus was left alone with his thoughts and the inescapable conclusion that he needed to offer an apology to his Commander and best friend.  He turned and sat heavily on the crate that Shepard normally used.  "Ah, spirits.  How did things ever get so messed up?"


	8. A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Justicar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mission to recruit the Justicar has a couple of unexpected moments in it.

Shepard's door chimed, giving her a welcome reprieve from more paperwork.  "Enter," she called out.  Whoever it was hesitated a long while, long enough to make her turn around in curiosity.  She blinked once when she saw Garrus' tall figure in the doorway.  "In or out, Vakarian," she said in a neutral tone.

  


His mandibles tightened against his jaw as he stepped forward.  She stood up and gestured him down the stairs to her sitting area.  They both held their peace until they were settled on the couches, and still Shepard waited until Garrus spoke first.

  


"Shepard, I'm sorry.  Not that I wanted to kill Sidonis.  I still do.  But you were right about letting him live, and I shouldn't have taken so long to admit it."  The lanky turian sighed and hunched over.  "I still hope his spirit wanders lost for the rest of eternity, but at least I won't be the one sending him there."

  


Shepard listened to her friend and rested her hand on his knee.  "Thanks, Garrus.  I know I was a hard ass on you back there, but I just couldn't stand there and let you do something so self-destructive."

  


"I just have to know, Shepard, why?  Why the change of heart?  You know I'd follow you into hell and back, but you've changed.  And I'm...I'm sorry for what I said back on the Citadel.  You're not soft.  But you are different.  You...care more.  About strangers.  Even ones as despicable as Sidonis."  

  


His bright blue eyes were boring into her now, and she shifted uncomfortably on the couch.  She wasn't sure she was ready to talk about it, but she owed him, and he was her closest friend.  "It's because I died."  Unable to meet his eyes, she looked over at her fish tank, watching them swim peacefully around.  "One of the last things I remember is being so angry that I wouldn't be able to finish my goals.  I wouldn't be around to take out the Reapers.  And...I missed my friends so badly, knowing I'd never see them again.  Missed you.  And Kaidan," she allowed with a hitch in her breath.  "There was so much more I wanted to do.  And now, every time I have a choice about pulling the trigger, I think about that.  What else might they do?  Would they seize the chance to live if it was given to them like a miracle?  Maybe not, but maybe, just maybe, one or two of them will.  And I hope they'll do something amazing, something that makes my choice to spare them the right one."  She looked up at him.  "That's why I stood between you and Sidonis, Garrus.  It was as much for him as for you.  And deep down, even though you don't want to admit it, there's a gentleness, a goodness in you.  Killing Sidonis could have extinguished it, and I wasn't going to let that happen."

  


Garrus studied her for a long moment.  "You never had any intention of letting me take that shot, did you?"

  


"No."  Her auburn hair fell down around her face as she shook her head.  "You can be mad at me if you want, but I'd do it again.  You're too special to me, Garrus.  I'll protect you against yourself if I have to."

  


He leaned forward and with one talon pushed an errant lock of hair back behind her ear.  "I don't suppose there's any stopping you, but I reserve the right to do the same for you."

  


She chuckled softly.  "Since when do I engage in self-destructive behavior?"

  


Garrus leaned back and let out a loud bark of laughter.  "I don't have enough talons to count that high, even if I lump every suicidal drive in the Mako in one count.  Pissing off Council members isn't too smart either."

  


Shepard laughed with him.  "Okay, I'll give you that one.  Never said I was a great Spectre.  Guess we make a good pair, considering how bad a turian you are," she said jabbing him in the ribs.

  


And just like that, the awkwardness between them was gone as if it had never existed.  Their talk turned to Ilium and the upcoming quest to recruit the Justicar.

 

* * *

 

"Dropped one!  That makes sixteen, Shepard," Garrus crowed.

  


Shepard grimaced and concentrated on taking out the nearest Eclipse merc with her pistol.  She'd decided that her aim was getting sloppy, and she was relying too much on the spray bursts from her assault rifle, so she'd made a bet with Garrus that she could take out as many with her pistol as he could with his sniper rifle.  Popping up from cover, she sighted on the nearest merc and sent a round neatly between his helmet and chest armor, smiling in grim satisfaction as he dropped to the ground.  "Eighteen!" she yelled back.

  


Miranda just rolled her eyes as she sent a warp at the remaining merc and destroyed his barrier.  Shepard grinned and snapped a round off, dropping the merc before Garrus could line up his sniper rifle.  "Nineteen," she taunted him with a grin.  "Your rifle's too slow, Vakarian."

  


For an answer, Garrus simply sighted across the warehouse and fired two times in quick succession.  "Eighteen, Shepard.  Just admit it, your little pea shooter's only good for short range."  He patted his rifle possessively.  "Not like this baby.  Death from afar.  Just the way I like it."

  


Shepard huffed as she scooped up some spare thermal clips from the dead mercs.

  


Miranda strolled forward.  "If you two are quite done with your little game, can we continue?  We came here looking for a Justicar, not a shooting match, if you remember."

  


Shepard and Garrus grinned at each other behind Miranda's back, then hurried to catch up with her.  "Come on, Miranda.  You can play, too," Shepard cajoled.  "Plenty of mercs to go around."

  


"No thank you, Shepard.  I prefer to keep it professional during missions."

  


Shepard kept trying as they climbed a flight of stairs.  "Come on.  We'll start over.  Loser buys rounds for the group when we're done."

  


Miranda gave Shepard a sidelong look, but whatever she was about to say was interrupted by a volus strutting around at the top of the stairs.  

  


"I am a biotic god!  I think things - and they happen!  Fear me, lesser creatures, for I am biotics made flesh!"

  


Shepard blinked and had to hold back a snigger at the diminutive volus' declaration.  "I don't know what drugs you're on, but stay back and I won't shoot you."

  


The volus waved his hands dismissively.  "You will regret your scandalous words!  I will sweep all before me like a great wind.  A great biotic wind!  Yes, the asari injecting so many drugs into me was terrifying, but then I began to smell my greatness.  They may laugh when I fall over, but they don't know what's in my head.  That I am great in my head!"

  


Shepard slapped her palm against her face and a giggle slipped out.  Garrus had a huge grin on his face, and even Miranda's lips were twitching in amusement.

  


The volus went on.  "When I was mortal, I worked for Pitne.  The pool soul is probably terrified that I have not returned."

  


Garrus shook his head and popped the poor volus' balloon.  "Nope.  He hasn't reported your disappearance.  Probably so his departure won't be delayed. Face it, Pitne will pick money over friends every time."

  


"Bah!  I will wreak a just revenge upon his people.  But first...the leader of these mercenaries is in the next room.  I shall toss Wasea about like a rag doll!" he thundered.

  


Garrus gave the little volus a pitying look.  "Shepard, this guy can't tie his shoelaces, much less fight."

  


Miranda agreed.  "Having this incapacitated volus running around the battlefield could compromise us."

  


The volus paid them no attention.  "I will tear her apart.  My biotics are unstoppable!" he declared to the world at large.

  


Shepard almost managed to force the smile off her face.  "Wasea will tear you apart.  Why don't you take a little nap instead?"

  


"Ha!"  The volus threw his hand up in the air and turned away.  "Are you mad? I'm unstoppable.  Feasting on her biotic-rich blood will be the last step in the ascension to my godhood!"

  


Shepard couldn't help it.  She just about doubled over laughing.  Reaching out, she put one fingertip to the little man's shoulder and pushed him forward.  He toppled like a very short, very stout log.  Garrus laughed along with her, and even Miranda was openly smiling.

  


The volus tried to stagger to his feet.  "But...great wind.  Biotic god.  What was I saying?  I'm tired.  Yes, you may be right.  I'm tired.  I'll nap.  Destroy the universe later."  Something that sounded like a yawn came through his speaker port as the volus staggered away, covering more ground sideways than he did forward.

  


"So much for godhood," Garrus smirked.

  


That sent Shepard off into another helpless bout of laughter.  After a moment, she wiped her eyes and checked her pistol.  "Alright, enough entertainment for now.  If the volus was right, the merc leader is just in there."  She gave herself another five seconds to settle down, then nodded to Garrus to open the door.  She and Miranda got the drop on the mercs in the room and took out over half before Garrus got his sniper rifle lined up, but he made up for lost time by taking out three in the back with three quick shots.  "Twenty one," they both said simultaneously.   "Hell, Garrus, I'm not buying drinks for you.  You've got expensive tastes.  Last time you emptied my damn account."

  


He laughed as he fired another shot.  "You don't have a bank account any more, Shepard.  Being dead and all."

  


She grimaced and rolled to another crate for cover, then stood up and dropped an engineer before he could deploy a turret.  "Yeah, someday I'll fix that."  

  


"Incoming!" Miranda shouted.  

  


Shepard looked and cursed as she scrambled backward.   A grenade skittered across the floor, stopping just in front of the crate she was hiding behind.  Her tech armor protected her from the shrapnel, but a fine red mist filled the air all around her.  It wasn't thick enough to keep her from seeing the merc who tossed the grenade and taking her out with a single shot.

  


Shepard scanned the rest of the room.  It was empty of mercs, but the red mist filled the entire space.  "Christ on a cracker, what is this stuff?"

  


Miranda looked at the boxes and frowned.  "Minagen X3.  Illegal biotic enhancing drug.  Lethal in large doses.  I suggest we try to avoid it as much as possible."

  


"Yeah, like that's going to be easy."  Shepard sneezed as she jogged across the room.  The air was cleaner by the other door, but she felt a buzz starting in her head and hands.  Nothing for it but to go forward.  The trio entered the next room, but immediately had to dive for cover.  Two turrets were covering the entrance.  From behind a crate, Shepard used her omni tool to overload the turrets, but not before her crate was smashed to pieces.  It held more Minagen, and she gagged as it more or less exploded over her.

  


"Shepard, are you alright?" Miranda asked anxiously.

  


Shepard waved her back.  Didn't need both of them getting dosed with a lethal drug.  The room took on a reddish cast, and she couldn't tell if it was because the dust still hung in the air or if her vision was being affected.  Her back twitched as they worked their way through the room.  It felt like currents of electricity were spiking through her nervous system.  She saw a pair of mercs in front of her, and instead of using her pistol, she triggered a biotic throw at the pair and watched in astonishment as they flew backward and smashed into the wall with far more force than she'd ever been able to generate before.  A laugh bubbled out of her lips, and she stared down at her hand for a few seconds, ignoring Garrus, Miranda and the remaining mercs.  "Holy crap, this stuff is awesome!"

  


Miranda shook her fiercely by the arm.  "Shepard, this stuff is lethal at high doses like you're getting.  You've got to stay back for a minute.  Let it clear out of your system."

  


Shepard got a devilish grin on her face.  "Oh hell no.  This is way too much fun!"  With that, she used her biotics again and watched the door crumple out of its frame and fly away from her.  With a laugh, she ran through the door.  Time seemed to slow down, and it felt like she had entire minutes to decide her course of action.  The pistol was slack in her hand as she directed a warp with her other.  But something nudged her biotic sense and she somehow shifted her power.  She could feel her opponent's life energy, but instead of just disrupting it, she opened a conduit back to herself, feeling the power flow back to her.  Her unlucky target bent double then stood up rigid in pain, making him an easy target for Miranda.  When he crumpled to the floor, Shepard looked around for another target, so she could try it again.  She barely registered that more crates had burst open during the firefight, filling the room with another cloud of red dust.  Garrus was shouting something at her, but all her attention was focused on her next target.  She wanted to see if she could repeat the biotic drain, and she did.  Again, her target stood motionless, and this time, she brought up her pistol and ended him herself.  Her heart was beating wildly, and it almost felt like it wanted to leap right out of her chest, but she put it down to the exhilaration of the fight and of learning a new biotic attack.  She'd tried it before, years ago, but had never successfully mastered reave.  Now, she couldn't fathom why she'd ever given up trying to learn it.  It felt like the most amazing high.  Target after target fell, either to her new reave power or by being tossed around like ragdolls.  She was a biotic god, and that thought triggered a fit of giggles as she kept using her biotic attacks.

  


There was a loud, annoying voice yelling at her, but since it wasn't attached to Eclipse armor, she ignored it.  At least, until the voice's owner dragged her forcefully toward a corner.  "Shepard!  Snap out of it!"  Balefully, Shepard glared at the turian until the connections in her brain supplied a name for him.  "What do want, Garrus," she snapped.  

  


"You need to get in clear air.  You're going to go into cardiac arrest if you breathe any more Minagen."  He slammed her up against the wall and held her there with his hand against her chest plate.

  


"Garrus," she growled warningly.

  


Miranda faded into view on her left.  "Just wait a minute, Shepard.  This stuff clears out of your system almost as fast as it hits you."

  


Shepard panted and it slowly dawned on her just how fast her heart was beating.  Not just that, but her amps were screaming from the amount of energy she'd been pushing through them.  She nodded at Garrus, and he stepped back.  She noticed that Miranda looked a little glassy eyed, too.  "Thanks, guys.  Okay, let's finish this up and try to avoid the Minagen."   A stray thought passed through her mind that Thane would give her hell about wearing her visor instead of her helmet.

  


Thankfully, there were only a couple more stragglers.  There was still enough Minagen in Shepard's system that she forsook her pistol for biotics, just to discharge the excess energy flowing through her.  She even heard a rare laugh from Miranda, and she noticed that the Cerberus agent was displaying biotic strength far in excess of her normal abilities.  With a grin and a wink, she nudged Miranda with her shoulder, and shockingly, Miranda winked back.  "Nothing's ever boring with you around, Shepard."

  


Shepard laughed and draped her arm over Miranda's shoulders.  "We're all biotic gods.  Why should life be boring?"

  


Garrus just huffed and headed on while the two women shared a rare laugh.  By the time they reached the end of the hallway, the Minagen had worn off enough that Shepard could concentrate normally again, and the itchy sensation had lessened considerably.  It turned out to be a good thing, because they finally caught up with their Justicar.

 

* * *

 

Back on the Normandy, Shepard showed Samara to the starboard observation lounge and left her to settle in.  Her entire body ached, and her feet dragged the floor from exhaustion.  She stumbled into her cabin and left her armor scattered in an uncharacteristic mess across the floor as she fell onto her bed.  Unfortunately, her stomach was demanding to be fed and wouldn't let her fall asleep.  With a groan, she pushed herself to her feet and pulled on a pair of shorts and one of her new t-shirts.  Too tired and hungry to bother with shoes, she made her way barefoot into the mess.  Gardner was busy cooking dinner for the crew, but she grabbed a piece of fruit from the counter and started going through the cabinets, looking for anything to put into her hollow stomach.  Gardner finally put a box of ration bars in her hands and practically shoved her out of the mess.  She snagged another purple piece of Ilium-native fruit as she passed.

  


She ripped the ration bar wrapper off and shoved half the bar in her mouth.  All that intense biotic use had created a tremendous strain on her body, and now it was demanding its due.  She walked around the corner to Miranda's office.  "Want one?" she asked around a mouthful of food and waved a ration bar in her XO's direction.  Miranda held out for about a second.  

  


"God, yes," she muttered and grabbed it out of Shepard's hand.  

  


Shepard collapsed into the chair across from Miranda's desk.  "Nice work today," she told the other woman as she tossed a second bar at her.  "How you holding up?"

  


"Better than you, I imagine.  I actually tried to avoid the Minagen."

  


Shepard chuckled.  "Aw, come on, Miri.  We shared a moment today.  Let's not ruin it so quickly.  Besides, after that one crate exploded practically on top of me, I don't remember a whole lot from that point aside from the unbelievable rush of power.  I've never been that strong biotically.  What a rush!"

  


Miranda gave her a half smile.  "I think it was the drug, not the extra biotic energy."

  


"Yeah, I know. But I'm gonna miss being able to throw twice what I normally can," Shepard sighed.

  


"Don't get used to it," Miranda warned.  "It's addictive as well as illegal and lethal.  Not a good combination."  

  


Shepard grinned and made an X over her heart.  "Promise I won't try it again.  Now don't you start on me, because I'm sure to hear about it from Chakwas, and if you say one more word, I'll make sure she gives you extra tests."

  


Miranda's mouth was full, so she just shook her head in acceptance.

  


Shepard continued.  "So, you think we should have recruited the biotic god this morning?  He'd make an interesting addition to our crew."

  


"Please, Shepard."

  


The Commander chuckled at the pained look on her XO's face.  "Alright, alright, I'll leave you be.  Just thought if that stuff hit you like it did me, you'd be ravenous.  Just one other thing to discuss.  I've decided to stay an extra day on Ilium.  I'm giving the crew another twenty-four hours shore leave, but I want you specifically to rest tomorrow.  Put Jacob in charge of crew rotations.  See you at dinner tonight."  She waved away Miranda's half-formed protests.  "Orders, Miranda."

  


She was tired, but while she was still vertical, she needed to check on Garrus.  The gunnery hallway had never seemed so long before.  He didn't answer the chime on the door, so she went ahead and opened it, only to find the turian snoring peacefully on his cot.  Even though he wasn't a biotic, exposure to the Minagen must have affected him.  She turned to head back to her cabin for a nap, but she only made it as far as the mess table before she got too tired to continue.  She sat and stared blankly at the back wall, trying to decide if it would negatively affect crew morale if she just put her head down on the table and slept there for a while.  Then she was aware of Dr. Chakwas shaking her by the shoulder.

  


"Come on, Commander.  Let's get you into the Med Bay."

  


"Don't wanna," she complained.

  


Chakwas bent to hoist the exhausted woman up and quietly said, "I'll opaque the windows and you can sleep there until dinner time."

  


Shepard nodded and went along, leaning heavily on the doctor.  As she crawled onto a bed, she said, "Nap sounds good.  I'll destroy the universe later."  She giggled at Chakwas' puzzled expression.  "Guess you had to be there."  

 

* * *

 

A/N:  I loved this bit in the game with the volus high on drugs.  I also needed to come up with an in-game explanation for how Shepard comes up with a new biotic power midway through the game.  It seems a bit weird to just say, okay, here’s a new biotic power just for spending some eezo.


	9. Cops and Robbers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kolyat gets picked for a special assignment on the Presidium and meets someone unusual.

“Kolyat, get over here.”  Bailey shouted over the hubub of the general C-sec office noise for his newest recruit.  “I got a special assignment for you.  Get you off that beat in the 9th district you were complainin’ about yesterday.  Yeah, don’t think I didn’t hear you and Morin bitchin’ about moving vorcha for the last two weeks.  Well, I hope you showered since yesterday, because I’m sending you to the Presidium.”

 

Kolyat looked surprised.  Bailey hadn’t been a bad boss, but for the last two months, Kolyat had definitely had the scut assignments that nobody else had wanted, and now to get a call to the Presidium almost felt like winning the lottery.  “Me and Morin, both?”

 

“Naw, just you.  Head on over to a shop called Edina’s Lovelies.  C-sec is holding a girl for suspicion of shoplifting, but she’s claiming diplomatic immunity.  Go sort it out.”

 

“Me?  I’m no diplomat.”

 

Bailey growled at him.  “What? You wanna herd vorcha and pick up drunks for the rest of your term?  I wanna see if you can actually use that brain of yours or not.  Now git!”

 

Kolyat worried over the puzzle the entire trip to the Presidium.  The Presidium had its own division of C-sec, and rarely requested help from the Wards.  It couldn’t be because of his parole.  Bailey had kept that off the books, and as far as anyone knew, Kolyat was a C-sec trainee, enrolled under special authorization.  He’d only been on the job for two months, so it couldn’t be his skills.  That left only one thing - his race.  Probably something to do with the hanar, then.  He knew there weren’t many drell on the Citadel, but surely there must be at least a few in C-sec, in the other Wards.  He was still trying to figure out the implications when he arrived at the store.

 

Edina’s Lovelies primarily sold lingerie and jewelry and catered to females of all races.  Walking into the store, he found himself in a sea of lace and wispy fabrics of all colors and shapes.  An asari shopkeeper motioned him into the back, where he finally figured out why he had been picked.  Two turian C-sec officers were standing near a young drell woman.  As soon as he walked through the door, the taller officer waved at him.  “Bailey said you were coming.  She’s all yours now.  That pile on the chair is the stuff we took off her when she left the shop.  Good luck,” he chortled as he sauntered out of the shop.

 

Great, Kolyat thought to himself.  Diplomatic immunity, so she’s the daughter of someone important.  Probably thinks she can do anything without getting in trouble.  She’s probably right, too.  He’d only been on the Citadel for two months, but he’d already been a cynical young man, and what he saw in C-sec wasn’t doing much to change his opinion.

 

“Who are you?” Kolyat and the girl said it at the same time, then looked at each other, although in the girl’s case, it was more of a glare.  “You first,” she demanded.

 

Kolyat shrugged.  “Kolyat Krios, C-sec Zakera Ward,” he tossed off casually.  “Your turn.”

 

She sniffed and paced to stand in front of him.  “Hama Strychae.  My mother is the top aide to the hanar ambassador, and I have diplomatic immunity, so just stand aside and let me go.”  She was shorter than him, her scales a light orange color shading paler on her arms and hands, with rich brown stripes winding around her head and arms.  Her eyes were a striking orange underneath the dark black sclera.  He guessed she was around 16 or 17, and she carried herself with a rebellious air.  Her clothing looked more appropriate to the lower wards, with holes purposefully torn in her faded pants and a too-big t-shirt extolling a music group Kolyat had never heard of slipping off one shoulder.  Her fringes were lined with three gold hoops on each side.  She looked like she was ready to push past him.

 

“Not so fast, seria.  My boss told me to sort this out, and I can’t do that by just taking a car ride down here and then back again.  Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”  Kolyat had no intention of spending the next three years herding vorcha around, so he wasn’t about to let her just walk away without doing something about it.  He walked over to the chair to see what she had stolen.

 

Hama sighed in exasperation.  “It’s all a mistake,” she said in a tone normally used to explain things to idiots.  “I told them that my mother had already sent a credit letter to the store, and they just needed to go look for it.”

 

“Uh huh,” Kolyat nodded absently.  “Your mother always send you letters of credit after your shoplifting sprees, or only when you get caught?”

 

“Hey!  Watch what you’re saying. I’m a member of the ambassador’s staff, and you can’t talk to me like that.”  Sparks were flying from her eyes, and she planted her hands on her hips.  Kolyat had his back to her, but he was keeping an eye on her.  He half expected her to stomp her foot in anger.  

 

“I thought it was your mom who was on the diplomatic staff.  Did the hanar hire you, too?  You’re not exactly exhibiting stellar diplomatic speaking skills here, kid.”

 

That just riled her up more, like Kolyat expected.  “I am NOT a kid.”  This time she did stomp her foot. “I’m seventeen.  I’ll be an adult in four more months..."

 

"And then your mom's diplomatic immunity won't cover you anymore, and I'll be throwing your ass in jail for shoplifting instead of just talking to you."

 

She was incensed that he'd cut her off.  "You can't talk to me like that."

 

"I just did," he drawled with a wicked smile.  He discovered he was having fun pushing her buttons.  So much more fun than herding vorcha.  "What are you going to do about it?  Complain to your mom that the C-sec officer pointed out the truth?  How many times has she told you the same thing?  Maybe I should actually take you in and make you wait in a holding cell until your mom can come pick you up.  Just for your safety, of course, to make sure an adult can escort you home.  It is late, after all.  Never know what sort of criminal element is lurking around the corner."

 

"You can't do that," she tried again.

 

"You seem awfully sure about what I can and can't do, but I'm willing to bet I've read the C-sec regs more recently than you.  Shall we check?"  Still with that grin, Kolyat brought up his omni-tool screen.  He had been reading the regs, since Bailey made a habit of quizzing him on them.  He hadn't read the diplomatic section yet, but she didn't have to know that.  

 

"Look, what do you want?  Money?"

 

Kolyat's grin disappeared and he stepped closer to the young drell.  "You think you can bribe your way out of this?  With me?  With another drell?  How long have you been gone from Kahje to think you can treat me like an alien?" he growled.

 

Hama squeaked and took a step backward.  "No, no, it's just that...that the others always..."  She faltered under Kolyat's withering glare.

 

"Others?  How many times have you been tagged for shoplifting?  Or worse?"

 

"Not very often," she finally admitted.  "Just...please, don't tell my mom, okay?  I don't like it here, but I don’t want to go back to Kahje."

 

"Why not?  Every other drell does.  Don't you miss your family?  Or did they all come to the Citadel?"

 

She shook her head and walked toward the back of the room.  "Just my mom and me.  My dad's back on Kahje.  He got remarried, and I don't want to have to live with him and his new family, okay?"

 

Kolyat backed down.  He thought he understood a little bit, now.  Since the drell population was so small, large families had become a cultural imperative, and if a marriage didn't work out, the couple was encouraged to find new  partners and have more children, although in practice that meant a lot of blended families that didn't always get along, or children who felt neglected when their parents split.  But the drive for more children was so strong that it trumped individual feelings.  Besides, most families had strong bonds to their extended relatives, and cousins might be closer than siblings or step-siblings.  Kolyat was a rarity among drell, an only child, but he had plenty of cousins and usually didn't feel the lack of siblings.  He'd never considered how it might feel to have a father that left him and his mother for another woman to start a new family.  He'd always been too angry at his own father for simply abandoning them.

 

"Look," he said, "I'm sorry about your dad.  But that isn't a good reason to go out and get in trouble, to get back at him.  He won't even know unless you go back to Kahje, and you said you don't want to do that.  So why are you really shoplifting?  You don't need the credits, not if your mom's working on the ambassadorial staff."

 

Hama sniffled before she turned around to face Kolyat.  "Because I'm bored.  Because I'm good at it.  Because I can't really get in trouble for it.  There, happy now?"

 

Kolyat huffed but kept from laughing.  "Not necessarily, although I am happy I got called here instead of picking up drunks tonight.  But seriously, you can't be that good at it or you wouldn't have gotten caught this time, so what?  Trying to get your practice thievery in before you turn eighteen?"

 

"Maybe," she answered him with a haughty tilt of her chin.  

 

This time, he did laugh at her.  "Kid, give it up.  Pick something legit to try.  By Arashu, you have opportunities here that other people would die for.  You're living on the Citadel, your mom's working for the Ambassador.  I'm sure you could do something that would be important."

 

"No."  Both of Hama's hands flew outward in rejection.  "I'm not working for the hanar.  They got my mother, but they won't get me, too."

 

"What do you mean?" he asked puzzled.

 

"She's part of the Compact.  That's why we're here.  You don't work on the staff here unless you serve the Compact.  It's a privilege, you know," she finished sarcastically.  

 

Kolyat took a step back and scratched his arm absently.  He had his own reason for hating the Compact, but he'd never seen anyone else who did.  All the other drell on Kahje revered the Compact and considered it an honor above anything else to have a child chosen to serve.  But his mother had hated it.  She had blamed it for making his father go away on business.  She never told him what that business was, and then his father had disappeared for good after his mother died.  Now that he knew how his father served the Compact, a lot of things from his childhood suddenly made sense, but it didn't mean he was ready to forgive either his father or the hanar.

 

"So I've heard," he answered cynically.  "Can't say I see where the privilege is, myself."

 

"Exactly," she said.  "It's supposed to be an honor to travel to the Citadel, but my dad hated it.  Said my mom cared more about her job than him, so he left.  He went back to Kahje, and we stayed here.  When I asked her why we had to stay, she just said she had an obligation, and dad couldn't accept it."  She scrubbed at her eyes, then turned the questions back on Kolyat.  "Why are you here?  Why did you leave Kahje?"

 

"Ah, well, I was um..."  He couldn't exactly tell her about his aborted attempt to start a career as an assassin after chewing her out about thievery.  "I was looking for my dad."  At her skeptical look, he added, "It's true.  He...he served the Compact, too.  He's been gone since I was a kid.  I was looking for him.  Thought I'd start here."

 

"Really?" she asked.  "Find him yet?"

 

Now Kolyat laughed wryly.  "Yeah, actually I did."

 

"And?" she prompted.

 

It took him a moment to answer.  "It's been a long time.  We...talked.  It's a start."

 

"So is he still here?" she asked.

 

"No.  He's on another mission."  Kolyat couldn't quite keep the bitterness out of his voice.  "Something very important.  Again."

 

"Damn hanar," Hama muttered.

 

"Actually, he's not working for them anymore.  He left the Compact.  Now he's working for a human.  Commander Shepard."

 

"Shepard?  You're kidding."  The look she was giving him made him pause.  

 

"Why?"

 

"The Commander Shepard?  Savior of the Citadel?"

 

"Yeah.  Why?" he asked again.  

 

"No way.  And you called me a kid?  Do you even know who she is?"

 

"Well, yeah.  Of course."  Kolyat was struggling to understand why she was so excited and didn’t want to admit that he didn’t know all the details of what Shepard was up to.  If he never saw her again, it would be too soon, in his opinion.  "So what?"

 

"This mission she's doing has the entire Council spun up.  You wouldn't believe how much message traffic about her goes back and forth every day.  The Council is keeping up with everywhere she's going, and apparently, there's a schism in the Council about whether they believe her or not."  

 

"Believe her about what?" he asked.  Kolyat tried to ignore the cold feeling in the pit of his stomach.

 

"I don't know exactly."  Hama's frustration was clear.  "Mom won't talk about the details, but every day there's an update on where she is and what she's doing.  I wonder if the Ambassador is getting those updates because of your dad.  If he's with Commander Shepard, he must be important.  I've heard mom talk about the people she's working with.  She said that the human had a talent for finding the best people in the galaxy in their field.  So what does your dad do?"

 

This was a conversation that Kolyat did not want to continue.  "He won't talk about it," is all he said.  "Hey, I really do need to get you home.  Bailey will have my scales if I just let you walk out of here, so I'm going to escort you home."  He called up her address on his omni-tool.  It would only take him fifteen minutes to walk her home.  He tucked one hand under her elbow as they left the store.  He nodded his thanks and goodbye to the shopkeeper on his way out.  

 

"You really don't have to walk me home," Hama tried, but there wasn't much effort in her words.

 

"Yes, I really do," was his answer.

 

They walked along the Presidium river in silence for a while.  "Where's your mom?" Hama asked.  

 

"She died when I was ten."  

 

"Oh.  Sorry."  

 

They were both avoiding looking at each other.  "It was a long time ago."

 

"Well, at least you still have your dad.  I hope you can work things out with him."

Kolyat snorted.  "Yeah, we'll see about that."  After a moment he added, "He is trying.  I'll give him that.  He keeps sending letters, telling me about the crazy people he's working with.  I guess that means the crazy people are actually geniuses or something, according to your mom.  He'll come by to see me when his ship docks at the Citadel."

 

Hama said, "Well, according to my mom, half of Shepard's crew are criminals.  That's part of what's got the Council all stirred up.  They appointed her a Spectre, she gets killed, then comes back to life two years later, and starts stirring up trouble in the Terminus.  Even the humans aren't happy with her.  I overheard Udina, the human Councilor, the other day.  He was yelling to some military guy about how she was a traitor to her race, hanging out with criminals and aliens.  For a Councilor, he doesn't seem to like aliens very much."

 

Kolyat nodded.  "Seems like a lot of humans have that attitude. Probably because they're so new to the galaxy."

 

Hama nodded.  "They're so aggressive, too.  But I guess that works for them.  It's only been thirty years and they already have a Council seat and a Spectre."

 

Kolyat's omni-tool beeped.  He made a surprised sound when he checked it.

 

"What?" Hama asked.

 

"Speaking of fathers, mine just sent another message."

 

"Does he say where he's at?" she wanted to know.

 

Kolyat scowled at her.  "Why?"

 

"Duh.  Because he's with Shepard.  I wish I could meet her and see if she's as amazing as everyone says."

 

Kolyat scanned the message.  "Well, maybe you'll get your chance.  He says they'll be at the Citadel in five days and wants to know if I'll meet him for dinner."

 

Hama clapped her hands together and smiled.  "Perfect.  My mom's hosting a party in a week.  Very high society sort of thing.  I'll see if she'll invite him and Shepard."

 

"Wait.  You can't do that," Kolyat objected.

 

"Why not?"

 

"Because he's not high society.  He hates parties."   

 

"How do you know?" she asked in a reasonable tone.

 

"Because he never wanted to go to them when I was a kid."  Kolyat's memories came back to him.  His mother persuading his father to go to his cousin's birthday party.  His father looked distinctly uncomfortable even though he agreed, and spent most of the party with his back against the wall, talking to his brothers-in-law while keeping an eye on Kolyat, but never joining in the games as some of the other parents did.

 

"Pssh."  Hama waved away his arguments.  "Those were kids’ parties.  This is totally different.  Besides, I hear that Shepard is trying to get support for whatever big project she's involved in.  She won't pass up the opportunity to talk to the hanar and drell, and if she comes, I bet your dad will, too."

 

Kolyat made a disagreeing rumble in his chest, but he was unable to refute Hama's logic.  He knew a little bit about Shepard's mission, and he was afraid she was right about the human Commander's plan to unite the races against the Reapers.

 

Before he could think up any good reasons to dissuade Hama, they were at her apartment.  

 

"Crap," she muttered.  "Mom's already home.  Okay, thanks.  You can go back now."

 

Kolyat's grin came back, and he was thankful for the change of topic.  "Oh no, I think I want to see how you handle explaining me to your mom."  With that, he reached out and rang the door chime.

 

"Kolyat," she hissed at him.  The annoyance in her subvocals came through loud and clear.

 

"Better get hold of yourself, or your mom's going to figure out right away you're in trouble," he whispered to her.

 

Hama fidgeted with her shirt and took a deep breath before she reached out to open the door.  "It's just me, mom."

 

Hama's mother was just reaching for the door on her side, and her inner eyelids fluttered in surprise to see her daughter in the presence of a C-sec officer.  

 

Kolyat bowed respectfully.  "Good evening, Sera.  I'm your daughter's escort this evening.  Officer Krios, Sera."

 

Hama took after her mother in coloration.  Her mother was a darker orange with stripes that were almost black.  "Officer Krios, good evening.  Hama, would you explain why you have a C-sec officer escorting you home?"

 

"I was a witness to a burglary, mom.  He was taking my statement, then said he'd walk me home since it was late."

 

Kolyat gave the young girl credit.  If he didn't know any better, he wouldn't have been able to tell she was lying.  She completely suppressed the usual subvocals that gave away lying in drells.  He wondered if it came naturally to her, or if she picked it up by virtue of being around diplomats all the time.  He would have to watch his own tone and word choice carefully.  He never had been a very good liar.  However, watching her mother, he had a feeling that she wasn't entirely fooled.  "Your daughter was very cooperative, Sera."

 

"My name is Milar Strychae, and you have my thanks, Sere Krios.  Will you come in?"

 

"No thank you, Sera.  I need to report back to my office.  Good evening, Sera, Seria.  Stay out of trouble, Seria," he said with a wink and a devilish grin as he turned away.  Let her try and explain that remark to her mother.  He know that he wasn't the only one who heard her puff and rumble in irritation, and that only made him grin wider as he walked to the transit stop.

 

* * *

 

A/N:  Yes, you will be seeing more of these characters.  Since this is a Shrios fanfic, a lot of the side stories will focus on drell society.  Yes, there is a lot going on in the rest of the galaxy, and we’ll see the fallout from it, but this is where I choose to focus my attention.  Let me know what you think.

 


	10. A Third Chance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kolyat comes to the attention of some powerful people in the Presidium. Shepard discusses with Thane the real reasons she's invited to an embassy party.

When Kolyat reported to work the next morning, Bailey sent him a message to report to his office first thing.  Kolyat was sure it had something to do with Hama, but he didn't think he'd done anything wrong.  Bailey hadn't said anything to him the night before, so what had happened overnight?  

 

"Well, kid, looks like you caught the attention of some important people," Bailey told him.

 

Kolyat was suddenly worried.  "What did I do?"  

 

"Went and got yourself reassigned, for one thing," Bailey groused.  "Just when I start getting ya trained up, they go and transfer you.  Oh well, it's only a temporary assignment.  Hope you shined your shoes this morning.  You're going up to the Presidium again, hanar ambassador's office.  You're to report to Milar Strychae.  Says she's the hanar's diplomatic attaché, whatever the hell that means."

 

Kolyat looked at Bailey in stunned surprise.  "Why me?"

 

"Hell if I know, kid.  Best guess is because you're a drell. You're certainly not experienced enough for what they're normally looking for.  Now go on.  You're supposed to report by oh nine hundred, and that gives you just enough time to catch a taxi upside."  Kolyat walked slowly away, listening to Bailey grumbling as he sorted through stacks of data pads on his desk.  

 

His mind was going a million miles a minute.  Obviously, his being a drell was part of it, but was it also because of his family?  Hama said something about his father being important because of his connection to Commander Shepard.  He supposed he owed Shepard his gratitude for keeping him out of jail, but his pride was still sore about how the human surprised him so easily and then was privy to the conversation between him and his father.  But then again, his father had probably already told Shepard all about their pathetic past.  

 

Even when he reached the hanar ambassador's suite, he couldn't still his thoughts.  The receptionist directed him to Milar's office, and he was admitted immediately.  "Good morning, Sere Krios,” Milar greeted him.  "Please, have a seat."

 

Kolyat looked around.  The office was sumptuously furnished in soothing colors of tan, green and lavender that reminded him of the oceans of Kahje.  Milar's desk was made of _ragalh_ wood, a rarity on the mostly-ocean world of Kahje.  It spoke to her prestige and power in the diplomatic world.  Milar was dressed in a heavy synth silk suit in a dark green that suited her coloring.  Kolyat sat down cautiously in one of the two chairs facing Milar's desk.  "Please, Sera, just call me Officer Krios.  Sere reminds me too much of my father."

 

"If you wish, Officer.   It is you I wish to discuss, not your father, however."  She leaned back in her chair and considered Kolyat.  "My daughter is not as accomplished a liar as she thinks she is.  I know why you were summoned to the Presidium last night, and I thank you and Captain Bailey for your discretion in handling the matter.”

 

Kolyat managed to keep from showing his surprise and waited for Milar to continue.

 

“I’m sure Captain Bailey has already told you that I’ve requested you be reassigned to our office for a week.  What he didn’t tell you, because I didn’t tell him, is that this is to be a trial period, and if everyone is agreeable, at the end, you will be permanently transferred to the security staff for the hanar ambassador's office.  Yes, I know you’re new.”  She waved away his objection before he could do more than open his mouth.  “I also know why you joined C-sec. I can’t say I approve of your previous career choice, especially considering your complete lack of training in the area, but I did like your drive to get out and away from Kahje, and your subsequent dedication to C-sec speaks well of your character.  If I can confirm my intuition about your character, you are just the sort of person we want to have on staff here.”  She waited for Kolyat’s response.

 

This time, he couldn’t stop his inner eyelids from fluttering as he tried to figure out how she knew about his aborted assassination attempt.  He’d looked in the C-sec files and had been unable to find any security footage of him and his father in the holding cell or of his assassination attempt.  Finally he focused on Milar, who was still waiting patiently for him.  “How?”

 

She tsked.  “Come now, Officer Krios.  Do you really think I’d reveal sources before I’m sure of your loyalty?  Try again.”

  
He tried the next logical question.  “Why?”  And what did she mean by the loyalty remark?  He filed that away to investigate later.

 

“Much better,” she nodded.  “You know most drell prefer to stay on Kahje.  It’s rare to find one that travels off-world, and even more rare to find one who travels at his own behest.  To find such a one employed by C-sec and with favorable comments in his service record after just a few months is a find more precious than an asteroid of eezo.  It only remains to be seen the quality of your honor, young man.  Tell me, do you pay much attention to politics?”

 

Recognizing a test, he tried to be diplomatic.  “Only in general terms.  Things seem fairly stable back on Kahje as far as relations between drell and hanar.  The humans have been agitating things ever since the human-turian war, but when Shepard saved the Council, it seemed to smooth over a little bit, and now they have a Council seat of their own.”  He did his best to keep the bitterness out of his voice, thinking of the upstart race who’d beat the hanar, volus, drell and other established races out of a Council seat in just three decades.  

 

Milar tapped her fused fingers on the table.  “Is that all?”

 

Kolyat thought furiously.  Was she looking for his knowledge of galactic politics, or those back on Kahje.  Given her position, he rather thought it was the galactic level.  “The Terminus systems are as stable as they ever are, which probably means they’ll launch an attack on human colonies within a few months.  I know Shepard has been asking the Council for resources to fight the Reaper threat she’s been talking about, but the Council is resisting, especially the turian Councilor.”  He looked up at her, and she still seemed to be waiting for more.  "Udina is working hard, but he seems to be alienating the other Councilors, or at least he's not making a lot of friends.  He doesn't seem to care much for Shepard, either, from what I hear.  Not that I can blame him."  Kolyat unconsciously rubbed his jaw.

 

"You know Commander Shepard?" Milar asked.

 

"We met briefly.  I thought you knew the whole story."  

 

"I'd like to hear your side of it."

 

Kolyat kept his growl private.  He wasn't fond of the idea of confessing his multiple failures to someone he barely knew.

 

Milar sensed his hesitation.  "As you said, I know the story, but I'd like to hear your impressions of the Commander.  Don't worry.  Your words won't leave this room, and I can guarantee there are no listening devices."

 

Kolyat hadn't even thought about bugs, and the thought flashed through his mind that if he was going to work here, he had a lot to learn very fast.  He dragged his thoughts back to Shepard.  "She's effective," he admitted grudgingly.  "I thought I just might be able to get out of that situation by myself, up until C-sec showed up.  Then I thought either Bailey or Shepard would shoot me to save the turian.  Instead, she found another way.  She distracted me.  Made me realize I'm not cut out to be an assassin, for which I'm grateful.  Then she managed to work a deal with Bailey to keep me out of the court system.  People seem to love her, or at least admire her.  Myself included.  I don't like her much, but I have to admire the way she can get things done.  Plus she recruited my dad, and he's very selective about his employers now."

 

"I thought you hadn't had any contact with him in ten years?" she questioned him.

 

"I haven't, but we've been writing since we met a few months ago.  He's been quite candid about what he's doing now.  Well, aside from the operational security stuff."

 

"So you don't know where he's at?"

 

"Only when he's coming to the Citadel.  He'll talk about places they've been, though.  Shepard's cutting quite a path through the galaxy."

 

Milar made a noncommittal hum deep in her throat.  "If you've decided that being an assassin is not for you, for which I commend your intelligence, how do you feel about working for C-sec?"

 

Kolyat shrugged.  "For an involuntary job, it's not bad.  Bailey's a decent guy.  I'm learning how to fight with guns and hand to hand.  It’s a decent way to stay out of jail, plus it pays a salary."

 

"Is that all it is?  Service to extirpate your crime?"

 

Kolyat thought.  "I don't much like the jobs I've been given, but that's mostly because it's just herding drunks and vorcha.  I'd like to find out more about some of the crimes C-sec investigates, but Bailey says I'm not ready yet.  I figured it was because he knows he can give me the crap jobs and I can't complain."

 

"If this works out, I can guarantee that you'll be far busier investigating much more interesting things that drunks or sordid domestic disputes," Milar informed him with a tight smile.  "Let us discuss the matter of your temporary assignment.  My daughter has a similar situation to yours, and likewise, she must serve her penance for her crime, and I would prefer to keep it out of the public eye.  I have tasked her with community service, helping the _drala’fa_ in the lower wards.  Given her position, she must have security when she travels there, but I'm loathe to dispatch our regular security force.  This will be a good task for you.  When you're not with Hama in the lower wards, I'll have some tasks for you here.  Something to test that intelligence of yours."

 

There was nothing he could say to that except "Yes, Sera."

 

"You'll begin this morning, Officer.  Hama is expected there in one hour.  That will be all for now."  Milar picked up a data pad, and Kolyat was obviously dismissed.

 

Hama was waiting for him when he exited Milar’s office.  “Mom said she was getting someone interesting to escort me to the lower wards.  I have to admit, I’m glad it’s you,” she told him with a shy smile.  The bravado from last night was gone.  Whatever Milar had said to her had had an obvious effect on her attitude.  

 

Kolyat held back his sigh.  At least babysitting was a step up from herding drunks, and Hama was a darn sight better to look at than his current C-sec partner.  Remembering his thoughts that he had a lot to learn about galactic diplomacy, he decided to start with Hama.  Hopefully she’d be willing to give him insight into a world he’d barely paid attention to until thirty minutes ago.

 

“Let’s go serve our unofficial sentence,” he said as he gestured for her to proceed him to the car.

 

* * *

 

On the Normandy, Shepard was making her usual late night stop at Life Support, model kit in hand.  This time, it was a quarian liveship.  "Evening, Thane," she said with a warm smile.

 

"Siha," he greeted her just as warmly.  

 

"Incredibly awesome leader?" she guessed.

 

He shook his head with a quirk of his lips.  It had become a game between them.  She promised not to look it up on the extranet, but to try and guess the meaning.  “Getting closer, though,” he informed her.  

 

“I’ll have to add some more superlatives next time, then.”  She smiled again when she saw the steaming mug of tea waiting for her at her customary seat.  

 

“How many models do you have now?” he asked, taking his own seat.

 

She closed her eyes to think.  “Six now.  I’ve got two more in my closet waiting to be put together, then I think I may be running out of room.  Not sure what I’ll do when that happens.  Maybe I can take up outer space basket weaving,” she joked.  From his puzzled look, she guessed it didn’t translate well.  “Never mind,” she said.  “Anyway, I have something I wanted to talk to you about tonight.  I got an invitation.”  She pulled a data pad out of the model box and handed it over.

 

Thane read through it and looked up at her in surprise.  “A hanar embassy party?”

 

She nodded as she blew to cool off her tea.  “For myself and a plus one.  It didn’t mention you specifically, and I wondered if you had gotten your own invitation.  I can’t imagine that I’d bring anyone besides you unless you were already planning to attend.”

 

He shook his head slowly.  “No, I have received no such invitation.  I sense several undercurrents at work here.”

 

She laughed once.  “No kidding.  I think the turian Councilor would just as soon I disappear again, and Udina looks like he smells a vorcha every time I go into his office.  The only reason I visit is to annoy him and say hi to Anderson.  But the hanar...what political advantage do they see in inviting me?”

 

“I haven’t had a chance to tell you yet, but in Kolyat’s latest message, he mentioned that he had been transferred temporarily to the hanar embassy security.”

 

Shepard’s raised an eyebrow at that news.  “Really?  Quite a plum position for a rookie with a questionable past.  How did he swing that?”

 

Thane laughed.  “As far as I can tell, simply because he is drell.  However, he left out certain details I would have expected to hear, which makes me wonder what is not being said.  I very much look forward to seeing him when we dock and can speak without being overheard.”

 

Shepard sighed and sank into her seat.  “Have I mentioned that I hate politics?  Probably why I’m not very popular with the Council.  So anyway, what about these mysterious currents you mentioned?”

 

“The hanar have long been seeking a seat on the Council, and it caused quite a disturbance when humans were granted one after the Battle of the Citadel.  There were talks of trade embargoes and economic attacks, but the hanar economy is not big enough to make that a credible threat to the other races.  At one point, the hanar were poised to dismiss the ambassadors on Kahje back to their homeworlds, but a last minute deal was brokered, the details of which were kept secret.  I did not pay it much mind at the time, given my preoccupation with other matters."

 

Shepard fiddled with her model while she thought.  "It's not much secret that I'm trying to build coalition support against the Reaper threat.  I'm trying to beat some sense into someone, anyone, before we go against the Collectors."  Unsaid was the implication that they might not survive that mission.

 

"Perhaps the hanar see a way to increase their prestige through you.  Regardless of your lack of political savvy, your reputation is quite formidable outside of the Council.  Even I had heard of the Savior of the Citadel and the Hero of the Skyllian Blitz, although to be honest, I was disappointed that you didn't breathe fire and shoot lasers from your eyes when we met."  Only the slightest narrowing of his eyes gave away his amusement.

 

She laughed.  "Well, my eyes do still glow red in combat.  I can see where you would be confused.  So, will you be my plus one?"  At his confused look, she added, "My date for the night.  The invitation was for myself plus one, and I can't see taking Zaeed or Grunt.  I need someone to help me understand the hanar.  I'm always afraid I'm going to offend one of them.  I think I need etiquette lessons."

 

"I would be honored, siha," he answered.  "Both to accompany you and to provide you insight into hanar customs beforehand.  There is always another possibility.  Perhaps it is simply because Kolyat requested your presence.  From his conversation, you made quite an impression on him."

 

She looked skeptical.  "I met him for all of five minutes, and that included me punching him."

 

"As I said, quite an impression.  I doubt anyone else ever introduced themselves to him in quite the same way."

 

She gave him an impish grin.  "I'll have to think of something better for the party, then."

  
"I thought you were trying to build support, not get thrown out," Thane teased.  He found the piece she was looking for and handed it to her.  If their hands brushed together overlong, neither one minded.


	11. Collisions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard and Miranda debate the ethics of Cerberus after a day of shopping for something to wear to the embassy party. That night, Shepard and crew end up at the Dark Star and sparks fly when an old companion resurfaces.

The day started off great.  Shepard made contact with the master thief Kasumi Goto almost as soon as she stepped off the Normandy.  A brief conversation, and Ms. Goto was stowing her belongings in the Normandy.  

In desperation, she'd stopped in to see Miranda earlier in the morning.  Now she and the Cerberus agent were out shopping for an evening dress for her to wear to the hanar embassy party tomorrow night.  If someone had told her even two months ago that she'd be bonding with the curvaceous beauty over such frivolities as dresses and shoes, she'd have told them to go suck vacuum, but it turned out that Miranda had a classic sense of style and knew several upscale boutiques in the Presidium.  When Shepard blanched at the cost of one gown, Miranda shrugged.  

"Miranda, I can buy a top of the line pistol for what they're charging.  This is insane!" she hissed to the brunette while the sales lady was out of earshot.  

"Let Cerberus pay for it, Shepard.  The Illusive Man can afford it, and we know you need to build support.  You may win more at this party than you could with an entire armory of weapons."

It took her a couple more shops before she could relax enough to enjoy the experience.  While Shepard would have settled for the first one that fit decently, Miranda was more discriminating.  Shepard found it somewhat disconcerting that Miranda seemed to know what would fit her better than she did herself, but she had to admit that everything the Cerberus agent picked out was stunning.  It was simply a matter of picking the degree of stunning.

Finally, she stood in front of the mirror and they both nodded.  "That's the one," Miranda stated.  Shepard stood looking at herself in bemusement, hands running down the smooth silk of the dress that hugged her body.  It was a rich golden color that complimented her skin and hair.  Peekaboo cutouts lined with fine mesh wound around the dress, barely showing off her stomach and the sides of her legs.  The gown was sleeveless, though, which made Shepard brush her arms self-consciously.  “It doesn’t hide the reconstruction scars.”

“The drell will appreciate them.  It’s another form of marking.  To them, unmarked skin is an anomaly.  Besides, this is stunning on you.  Time you stopped wearing sweats and armor all the time," Miranda smirked.  She went off looking for shoes and returned with a pair of strappy heels in the same rich gold.  "Hope you know how to walk in these."

Shepard returned the smirk.  "I have actually worn a dress or two in my life, so yes.  Although these are taller than I'm used to."  She eyed the four inch heels in trepidation before slipping them on.  

"The height will help.  It will put you closer to eye level with the hanar, or whatever they use to see with.  There, perfect," Miranda said.  "We'll take it," she told the saleswoman.

Afterward, they had lunch at an open air cafe in the Presidium.  Talk inevitably turned to Cerberus and Miranda's history with them.  Shepard tried to keep an open mind, but she couldn't forget the horrors she'd seen two years ago, not to mention the assassination of Admiral Kahoku.  

"Shepard, you don't get it.  This is war, and the stakes are unbelievably high.  It's no different from you going up against Eclipse or Blue Suns.  The Illusive Man and Cerberus are playing in a very elite arena where economics and politics mix.  Usually you never see the players maneuvering because they operate in the shadows or use proxy agents.  The Illusive Man is different.  He's been aware of the Reaper threat for years.  I don't know how, but when Sovereign showed up, he simply said, 'it's late.'  Then he went on about his business.  He knows we don't have time to waste, and he's doing everything in his power to protect and prepare humanity.  That means he can't waste time operating in the shadows anymore.  All of his power and his wealth are directed to just one cause, saving humanity."

Shepard looked out over the luxurious homes and shops that ringed the Presidium as she considered.  "So the ends justify the means?"

"What about you, Shepard?  I know every bit of your service history.  You were called the Hero of the Skyllian Blitz, but there are several discrepancies in the reports that indicate your hands are more than a little bloody.  And your actions as the first human Spectre?  How do you explain the execution of Dr. Saleon?  You accuse Cerberus of underhanded assassinations, but the Illusive Man is fighting to keep his organization alive.  What was your excuse?  Dr. Saleon posed no threat to you.  You could have brought him in to stand trial, but instead, you shot him in cold blood."

Shepard tried not to flinch at Miranda's description.  She gave silent thanks that at least the other woman didn't know it was Garrus who had pulled the trigger, and she vowed that she'd never let her know, either.  

"Yeah, well, actually being dead has made me reconsider a lot of things."  She signaled the server for another glass of wine.  Having your flaws examined so bluntly over lunch seemed to require more alcohol.

"Look, Shepard, I know Cerberus has made some mistakes, and pushing hard for results tends to lead to less oversight, but without it, we never would have had the technology to bring you back when we did.  The Illusive Man is considering the biggest picture there is - the survival of the human race.  If you had to sacrifice a thousand to save a billion, would you?"

Shepard scowled at the napkin in her lap.  "Yes, damn it.  You know I would, too.  I'd also sacrifice everyone on the Normandy, if I had to.  Does that change your outlook any?" she challenged.

Miranda answer was cool and considered.  "Not at all, Shepard.  We all knew the risk when we signed up.  Everyone on the Normandy is a volunteer.  We're here because we share the same vision.  Besides, I also know your drive to protect those under your command.  You won't spend lives needlessly.  Those are the qualities that make you such an inspiring leader.  It's what we need.  It's what humanity needs."

"Look, Miranda, let's get one thing straight.  I'm not doing this for humanity.  I'm doing it for the galaxy, for all the sapient races that exist.  Turians, asari, krogans, even the damn vorcha.  I intend to destroy the Reapers so that everyone can continue living.  However ruthless I may be, I won't needlessly sacrifice one race in favor of another."

Miranda nodded.  "I know that, Shepard.  But the Illusive Man is willing to bet that you'll make sure that humanity is among the survivors."

Shepard drained her wine in one long drink.  "We're getting ahead of ourselves.  We have to destroy the Collectors first.  One battle at a time, Miri."

The brunette nodded her acquiescence.  "Of course, Shepard."

Later that afternoon, Shepard spent some time getting acquainted with their latest addition, Kasumi.  She didn't know if she should be impressed at Kasumi's obvious thieving skills or offended that such valuable objects were now showcased in the Normandy's port lounge.  She settled for polite interest.  They were beautiful objects, if nothing else, and she wasn't about to turn Kasumi in.  She left with Kasumi's promise to make her look exquisite for the hanar party tomorrow.  She had a feeling that Kasumi was the type to happily meddle in everyone's affairs just to keep things interesting.

Thane was visiting his son that evening, and Mordin couldn't be dragged from his lab, but she managed to cajole the rest of her specialists out for an evening at Dark Star.  Joker made her promise that she wouldn't dance, though, at least not until she'd had five or six drinks.  Jacob helped her reach that goal in record time, and it was only her new cybernetics that let her keep up.  The former soldier could drink like a fish!   Garrus talked her into venturing onto the dance floor.  Between the two of them, they cleared a couple square meters as their fellow dancers stayed clear of flailing limbs, but that only made the two of them laugh harder.  

"I'm thirsty again," she complained to Garrus.  "Go get me another beer."

"Get it yourself.  While you're at it, get me a turian brandy, the good stuff they have here.  You still owe me for the mission to get Samara."  He winked and nudged her hard enough she stumbled backward a couple of steps.

"Hey, watch it!"  She punched him in the arm indignantly, then yelped as her knuckles rang against his natural armor.  "Goddamit!"

"You'd think you'd learn to stop punching me by now, Shepard."  Garrus was openly grinning at her now.  

Shepard pressed her knuckles up against her lips and sucked the pain away.  "I swear I'm going to buy some brass knuckles tomorrow and keep them around just to use on you.  And maybe Grunt," she added.  

"Go ahead," he goaded her with a laugh.  "Still won't make a dent.  Now go get me that drink.  You know you owe me."  He gave her a much gentler shove in the direction of the bar and turned to dance with a friendly asari maiden who'd been eyeing them both for the last five minutes.

Grumbling under her breath, she pushed her way through the crowd to the bar.  She still didn't have her own credit account restored, but she had access to the Cerberus one for the Normandy, and right now, she figured the Illusive Man owed her a few drinks.  While she was waiting on the bartender, she turned to survey the crowd.  The music was a heavy techno beat, and the place was packed tonight.  The dance floor was filling up fast, and Garrus was lost among the multitude.  She'd rib him no end if he ended up with that asari tonight.  She wondered what interspecies sex between a turian and asari would be like, then blamed the alcohol in her blood for the graphic images that filled her mind.  It had been too long since she'd had any intimacy, and between the alcohol, the music, and the sexuality oozing from the dancers, she was beginning to miss it.  Feeling even more flushed, she downed half her beer and signaled for something stronger from the bartender.  

She looked out over the dancers again, seeing a mix of mainly humans, asari and turians.  There were a few quarians who stood out when the strobe lighting highlighted their masks.  She felt her cheeks heat up a few more degrees when she realized she was scanning the crowd for any hint of a green-skinned drell.  She mentally berated herself for even looking.  She couldn't imagine the stoic, calm Thane mingling in this crowd of writhing dancers.  That, of course, set her mind wandering in a whole new direction.  

She imagined dancing with him out there, the press of other bodies forcing her closer to him until they were almost touching.  She could feel the heat of his body, reach out and feel the soft leather of his coat.  In her mind, she called up the image of his full and sensual lips, then imagined how they would feel against hers.  Soft, warm, demanding.  She blinked when the turian bartender tapped her on the shoulder and gestured to her drink.  It was so loud that talking was almost impossible.  She paid and made her way back through the dancers with both her drink and Garrus', although if she didn't find him in the next few minutes, she was going to hand it off to the first lucky turian she ran into.  

An asari and a good looking human male were dancing and grinding on each other, and the press of the crowd was pushing her up against them.  They seemed to take that as an invitation and their dancing expanded to include her.  Suddenly she was sandwiched between the two and found herself caught up in their dance.  None of the Normandy crew were visible, so she shrugged and joined them.  It wouldn't hurt to dance for a while, especially since no one would make fun of her and the one she really wanted to dance with was hanging out with his son.  

She was tired of holding two drinks, so she shoved the brandy at a nearby turian who grinned toothily at her, and downed the rest of hers.  Then she let herself get lost in the beat and sway of the crowd.  The male moved behind her and ran his hands down her arms while the asari swayed seductively in front of her.  Between the alcohol and the two dancers, she was becoming less self-conscious and relaxed into the beat.  She pressed back against the male and beckoned the asari closer.  The music segued seamlessly from one song to another, and she swayed and jumped along with everyone else.  With this type of music and this many people, you didn't have to actually be able to dance.  Simply moving and gyrating was more than enough for anyone out there.

The first hint she had of something wrong was the way the asari's eyes widened in shock, then narrowed in a universal sign of appreciation for whoever she was looking at.  However, her appreciative gaze was centered just behind Shepard and that was enough to make her worry.  Hands slid around either side of her waist and held firmly just above her hips.  She stiffened.  Something was off.  The body behind her felt different from the human male she had been pressed up against just a second ago, but she hadn't felt anyone shoving behind her.  She turned around, and her eyes widened in shock.

"Thane!"

The look he gave her was the closest to open amusement she had ever seen from him.  He leaned in close so she could hear him.  "You should pay more attention to your surroundings, siha.  Failing that, you should keep company with someone who has a vested interest in keeping you safe."  His hands rested against her hips again, and he was much closer than they had ever been on the Normandy.  

Feeling like she was greatly daring, Shepard laid her hands on his shoulders and moved with him to the beat of the music.  “Someone like you?  What would be your interest then?”

“So that you can save humanity from the Collectors, of course.”

“Always so altruistic, Thane.  Someday, I’ll cure you of that.”

“I think you already have, siha,” he replied as he stroked her side.  “I did not say that that was my only reason for keeping watch over you.”

“Are you going to share your other reason?”

“Perhaps.”

“What?  Do I have to get you drunk to spill it?”

“I try to avoid alcohol in public places.  Especially if I’m going to watch out for you.  I have noticed that trouble tends to follow you, and I would not wish to have my abilities dulled by drink when you need them most.”

She grinned at him.  “I’m no damsel in distress, Thane.  In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m pretty good at pulling my own ass out of the fire by now.”

“Yes, but in the cases I have witnessed, you have had both armor and weapons.  Tonight, you have neither.”

Her grin grew wider.  “Then you don’t know me well enough yet.  Rest assured, I never step off the Normandy without a weapon of some sort.  And there’s always this.”  She let a trickle of biotic energy flare at her fingertips and soak into his shoulders.  At that low power, it would generate no more than a pleasant tingle.  She felt his shoulder shiver slightly as the dark energy flowed between them.  

He pushed her back a step, still keeping his hands on her hips, as his eyes raked her up and down.  She was wearing only a pair of jeans, a loose plain black shirt, and a pair of boots.  She’d gotten tired of having only Cerberus clothes to wear and had picked up some casual wear after the dress excursion with Miranda earlier.  She knew he was looking for a telltale bulge of a gun or knife, and she was waiting to see how long it would take for him to find it.  When his hands ghosted up her back, she smiled again.  He traced the outline of her pistol holster against the small of her back.  “Much smaller caliber than you usually take,” he remarked as he pulled her close again.

“I’m an expert marksman.  Don’t need to blow their head off if I can put a bullet in their eyeball.  I’m not always about the big explosions, Thane,” she teased.

A smile ghosted over his lips.  “Really?  Given the data I have thus far by accompanying you on missions, I would have said you were all about the big explosions.”  

“An unfortunate side effect of watching too many action vids as a kid,” she said.  “I’ll invite you to join me and Joker on our next movie night.  

“I would be honored,” he said with a nod of his head.

“See, you’re always so formal.  I’ll cure you of that as well.  In fact, I’m shocked to find you out on the dance floor.  You don’t strike me as the dancing type.”  Not that she minded.  In fact, Shepard found dancing with Thane to be a delight.  He had maneuvered them to the far edge of the crowd where there were fewer bodies packed around them, and somehow with Thane, dancing became more about a partnership and less about throwing her body around to the beat of the music.  She’d been comfortable with Thane as a partner in the battlefield for a long time now.  This was simply a different sort of battlefield.

“This is not dancing,” Thane said dismissively.  “This is people trying to lose themselves in music and drink, or looking for a partner to join with in the darkness and celebrate life at its most primal.”

“You dance, do you?” she challenged.

“I was trained in drell and hanar formal dances, yes.  Plus dancing in places such as this can be a good way to blend in or get close to a target.”

Shepard looked at him in surprise.  “You are the most interesting man I know, Thane Krios.  What other secrets are locked away in here?” she asked as she pressed a hand against his chest.

He covered her hand with his own, curling his fingers around her palm.  “Stay with me and find out,” he offered.

She drew in a quick breath and squeezed his hand in surprise.  “I’d like that.”  She closed the last bit of distance between their bodies.  Their slow dancing didn’t match the techno beat anymore, but neither of them noticed.  

They’d been dancing around each other for months now, just as slowly, with everything from battlefield innuendos to ‘accidental’ touches in the mess hall.  Even though she’d tried to fight against it in the beginning, she found herself falling helplessly head over heels in love with Thane, her seductive drell assassin.  She was never one for subtlety, in either romantic or friendly relationships.  Long ago, Ashley had compared her to a bull in a china shop, but the Chief wasn’t the first to make that association.  So even though Shepard had hoped she was reading the signs correctly from Thane, she’d always been afraid that she was misinterpreting his attention.  It was hard enough with human men, and throw in the fact that he was alien and it was ten times more complicated for her.  But this....this she could understand.  And she liked it.  

Of course, the universe refused to let her life be simple.  Her omni tool flashed at that moment with a message from Garrus. She huffed her breath out in frustration, then smiled an apology to Thane.  He smiled back and released her just far enough to access her omni tool.  She replied to his message informing him that she’d lost his drink and found her assassin, and he should leave her alone the rest of the evening.  He wasn’t much more subtle than she was, but he was used to her by now.  He replied back almost immediately with nothing more than a wink.

“So where were we?” she asked as she pressed up against him again, but she immediately noticed a new tension in his body.  “What?”

“I believe someone is looking for you,” he rumbled as he nodded to the entrance.  “He came in a few minutes ago and was scanning the crowd.  When he looked in this direction, he studied you for several seconds and is now making his way here.”  Thane spun her so she could look where he had directed.

“Shit.”  The man cutting through the crowd was none other than Kaidan Alenko.


	12. Rebound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard and Kaidan have it out. Afterward, Shepard and Thane talk about the ghosts in their past. Promises are made and things get very close.

Some days, you couldn’t win for losing, Shepard mused.  She was dancing with her new boyfriend on a crowded dance floor while her old boyfriend, the same one who’d insinuated she was a traitor, was bearing down on her like an Alliance frigate.  Kaidan was dressed in civvies - a dark pair of cargo pants with a chest hugging dark blue shirt that emphasized his trim form.  Resigned that he had spotted her, she stopped dancing and waited for Kaidan to approach.  Thane stood behind her with his off hand still wrapped around her and holding onto her hip.  He had picked up on her distress, but since she wasn’t reacting as if to a danger, he stood relaxed but ready to lend support if needed.

 

Kaidan stopped in front of her.  His eyes flickered from her to the drell behind her, then down to the green hand resting on her side before coming back to her face.  “Shepard,” he said by way of greeting.

 

“Alenko,” she returned, just as formal and waited for him to talk.  When he hesitated, she sighed and stepped back on one foot and crossed her arms over her chest.  “What do you want, Kaidan?”

 

“I want to talk, Shepard.  Privately,” he added with another look at Thane.

 

“Not now, Kaidan.  I’m kinda busy tonight.  Having a good time,” she added with a sharp edge to her voice.

 

“Tomorrow, then,” he tried.

 

“Busy tomorrow, too.”  She still hadn’t sorted out her feelings for Kaidan.  When he’d walked away on Horizon, she had been distraught, pouring her heart out to Garrus for companionship and understanding.  Later, she had pushed her feelings for Kaidan far down inside and refused to examine them.  As a couple, they were over, she had decided.  Then he sent her that damn letter which had only made her more angry and confused.  She had never responded to it, had written him off.  And then she had recruited Thane, and Kaidan seemed much less important.  Until now, when he had tracked her down in a noisy nightclub to apparently hash it out.

 

“Listen, Shepard, we need to talk.  About us.”  Again his gaze flickered to the drell behind her.

 

Shepard bit her tongue and counted to ten.  “Kaidan, this isn’t the place to have this discussion.”

 

“We can go somewhere else.   Do you know how hard you are to find?  You never replied to my letter, Shepard. I want to talk to you before you leave the Citadel again.  I want...I need to explain myself.”  He looked at her with the dark, soulful eyes that she remembered so well.  She could see his pain in them.  Well too bad.  She had more than her own share of pain.

 

“Maybe not replying was your answer, Kaidan.  Did you think about that?”  She couldn’t believe she was having this conversation here, in front of Thane.  What she had with the assassin was so new and fragile she wasn’t even sure what it was.  “Kaidan, not now,” she said again and turned away from him.

 

“Yes, now, Shepard.”  He stepped closer so that she had to look at him, disregarding Thane’s silent threat as he drew Shepard closer to him.  She had to hand it to him; Kaidan had never been one to back down from a threat.

 

She closed her eyes and her shoulders slumped in defeat.  “Fine, Kaidan.  You want to talk, we’ll talk.  Here.  Now.  You listen to me, this time.  You walked away from me when I needed you most, when I needed to talk to you about Cerberus, about what they did to me, and about what I was doing.  There was so much I was uncertain about, so many questions.  The only one I trusted was Garrus, and when I saw you on Horizon I was practically giddy with joy.  I couldn’t believe I’d found you, and I thought I could talk to you and you’d listen and we’d figure out what to do.  Together.  But you automatically assumed the worst about me.  You didn’t even try to listen to my side.  You called me a liar and a traitor and implied that you were morally superior because you would never turn your back on the Alliance.  What choice did I have, Kaidan?  It was Cerberus who brought me back and gave me the resources to save the human colonies.  The Alliance froze me out when I came to talk to them, and meanwhile, the Collectors are still out there abducting humans.  I couldn’t stand by and do nothing while the Alliance sits on its hands and dithers about the problem.  Cerberus is the only one who’s doing anything, so if I have to work with them, then by God, that’s what I’m going to do.  My allegiance is to humanity, to life, Kaidan.  That’s a hell of a lot more important than my oath to the Alliance.  I’ll do whatever it takes, work with whoever I need to, in order to save lives.  Can you say the same?  Or is your honor more important than saving lives?”

 

Kaidan stared at her during her rant, and she saw him wince at her last question.  “But you disappeared after the Normandy was destroyed.  Two years!  You just fell off the grid.  Then you show up again on a Cerberus ship, wearing a Cerberus logo, on a planet that we’d been tipped off was going to be attacked by Cerberus forces!  What the hell was I supposed to think?”

 

“I wasn’t ‘off-grid’, Kaidan.  I was dead.  D-E-A-D, dead!  Spaced!”  She stabbed her finger at his chest for emphasis.  “According to Jacob, I was meat and tubes on a table for the better part of a year.  I don’t know how they did it, but they brought me back.  And Cerberus is a lot of things, but they’ve never been accused of acting against humanity’s greater interest.  They’re pro-human.  That’s why they brought me back, so that I could figure out who was attacking the colonies and stop them.  And that’s what I intend to do.”

 

“But the Alliance has more resources, Shepard.  Come back with me, and we’ll get Udina and the Alliance to listen.  We’ll get you the ships you need.  You can’t go up against the Collectors with one frigate and a motley collection of mercs.”  Kaidan was pleading now, all the emotion he’d tried to convey in his letter out in the open.

 

Shepard shook her head.  “It’s too late, Kaidan.  It was too late when you walked away on Horizon.  You made your choice clear, and...and as much as I was angry, I also respect you.  You have your honor.  You’re a good soldier.  Our paths coincided for a while, but it’s time to move on.”  She paused for a second, then added in a softer voice, “You were right about one thing on Horizon, Kaidan.  I’m not the same person I was.  I can’t ignore what I’ve seen, and if that means I have to take another path to victory, one that’s unsanctioned by the Alliance, that’s what I’m going to do.  Go back.  Maybe you can convince the Alliance the threat is real, and if I don’t come back, it’ll be up to you to protect humanity.”  The anger was suddenly gone as she looked at him again.  “Good bye, Kaidan.  It was an honor serving with you.”

 

She walked back into the crush on the dance floor, ignoring Kaidan’s outstretched hand.  She pushed through the crowd, ignoring the occasional outbursts and curses as she trod on feet and pushed people out of the way in her bull-in-a-china-shop mode.  She didn’t even bother looking back and so missed the look Thane gave Kaidan just before he slipped into the crowd to follow her.  If she had, she might have noticed Kaidan finally take a step backward from the reproach visible in Thane’s expression before he disappeared.

 

Shepard made a beeline for the nearest rapid transit car available.  The only reaction she had when Thane slid into the car beside her was to study him for a second, then punch in her destination.  Without a word between them, the car flew into the air and headed toward the Presidium.  

 

Thane respected her silence as they reached the Presidium.  “Walk with me?” she asked as she headed up a floor.  They reached a balcony that was set back from the edge further than most.  The foliage around it was pink-tinted green with showy flowers, and a small sign indicated that it came from Thessia.  She had discovered this place years ago, on her first trip to the Citadel.  It was rarely occupied, being so small and set back, making it her favorite hangout when she had time to spare, which was increasingly rare.  She rested her hands on the balcony rail and looked down the length of the Citadel at the five arms lit by the Widow star.  “I guess you deserve to know what that was about,” she said without looking at him.

 

He demurred.  “Your secrets are your own, siha.

 

She shook her head with a sad smile.  “It’s not a secret, at least not a very well kept one.  It was just ignored by those who cared because there were bigger issues to deal with.  Anyway, you’ve been open with me.  I should do the same.”  She turned around to lean back against the railing and sighed.  “Kaidan Alenko served under me on the Normandy SR-1 when we went after Saren.  There was an attraction between us, and I tried to ignore it.  The Alliance takes a very dim view on fraternization between officers, especially on small ships.  But then we got grounded, and we actually stole the Normandy to get to Ilos and track down Saren.  After that, fraternization didn’t seem like such a big deal, especially not when you’re thinking this might be your last night alive.  We didn’t talk about it.  Garrus and Tali knew, but they had no reason to inform the Alliance.  So Kaidan stayed on the Normandy, and we were discrete, but two months later...that’s when we were attacked by the Collector ship.”

 

She glanced at Thane, but his expression was settled firmly into the inscrutable.  Well, she had decided to air her dirty laundry.  Might as well finish it.  “When I woke up and was talking with the Illusive Man, I asked about my old team members.  They were all unavailable or missing.  I tried to find Kaidan.  For me, it had only been a few days.  When I found him on Horizon, I discovered the hard way that it had been two years for him, and he had moved on.  At least, that’s what I thought.  Then he tried to talk to me, convince me to get back together.  Well, you heard how that ended just now.”  She turned back around to stare down the Citadel.  There was an uncomfortable prickling in her eyes that she refused to acknowledge.  “He moved on, and so did I.”

 

“Siha.  Shepard.  If your heart still belongs to him, do not fear for my feelings.  We have sworn no vows to each other.  I have no claim on you.”  His voice was so calm that it seemed a travesty that his words could throw her into such an emotional turmoil.  What she felt for Thane now showed her how shallow her feelings for Kaidan had been, and it made her feel simultaneously ashamed at her actions with Kaidan and frightened of her feelings for Thane and what they could mean.

 

“No!  I don’t love him. I thought I did, but it was just an attraction.  And in the end, I think it was a fatal one.”  She swallowed hard against the sudden lump in her throat.  She had never admitted this out loud to anyone, not even Garrus.  “He didn’t listen to me at the end, when the Normandy was under attack.  He wanted to go with me to the bridge to rescue Joker.  I ordered him to oversee the evacuation.  Finally, I had to yell at him to go.  It cost me seconds.”  Her fingers clenched the railing in front of her as she forced out the next words.  “I only missed getting in the escape pod with Joker by seconds.  Five more seconds, and I never would have been spaced.  Five seconds arguing with a lover, and it cost me my life.”

 

She brushed her eye angrily, trying both to dislodge the tear there as much as prove it didn’t even exist.  “I never told this to anyone.  Maybe it wouldn’t have made any difference.  No way to prove it.  But seeing Kaidan tonight brought it all back, everything that I thought I’d put away.  It’s not that I love him.  I don’t.  Not anymore.  But I can’t do this to you.  I care about you too much already.  I’m a mess, Thane.  I’m pretty sure I’ve got some bad psychological issues, and we’re on a suicide mission, and you’ve got a terminal illness, oh God, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to sound like that...”  She realized she was babbling and shut her mouth with a snap.  She chewed on the inside of her cheek and stared down the length of the wards, hoping that Thane wouldn’t say anything.  Maybe he would get the hint and just walk away from her.

 

She jumped when he wrapped his arms around her.  He had moved so silently she didn’t realize he was behind her.  He held her gently, as if he was afraid she would startle and run away.  “I care about you, as well, siha,” he breathed in her ear.  “When I look at you, I don’t see a mess. I see a warrior with angel wings, shining brightly with the strength of her convictions, strong enough to save worlds.  You do not earn that kind of strength by living an ordinary life, and the battles you have faced left scars, but you are all the more beautiful for them.”

 

Shepard held onto the railing as if it were the only thing grounding her to reality.  She closed her eyes against the tears rising behind her eyelids and tried desperately to maintain control of the emotions that threatened to overwhelm her.  He continued talking softly into her ear.

  
“If you truly cannot be with me because of my illness, I will understand.  I have no wish to hurt you, siha.  But if you hold back because you fear I will be like your Kaidan Alenko, you should look more closely.  I have sworn my loyalty to _you_ , siha.  Not to an Alliance or to an idealistic set of values.  If the time comes when you must order me away, even if it were to my death, I would obey.  We fight for something greater than either of us.”

 

At his words, she could no longer hold back the sobs.  She covered her face with her hands as her shoulders shook and the tears finally spilled from her eyes.  “I don’t want you to die, Thane,” she choked out.

 

“Neither am I happy at the prospect, and yet, our time comes to each of us and rarely at the time of our choosing.  Since I must die, let it be in battle in the service of something great and honorable instead of gasping out my last in a hospital bed.  But before that happens, I would spend my remaining days with you.  If you wish no more than friendship, that will suffice.  You have given me more than I could have ever wished for, siha.  Allow me to return a small portion of what you have given me.”  

 

Gently, so slowly that she could stop him anytime she wanted, he reached up and tipped her chin to face him.  His lips were warm, soft, and undemanding as he pressed them to hers.  Chaste though it was, it sent a lightning bolt straight through down to her toes and ignited a fire inside her entire body.  

 

God, she wanted this so much.  Thane was offering something she thought she’d never experience again in her life - love, safety, and peace.  It might only be momentary, and she knew the Collectors and Reapers were waiting out there, but just for a moment, she wanted to forget.  To forget about future horrors, about past mistakes, about command and responsibility, and to focus on this one shining, fragile moment.  Without consciously willing it, she relaxed back against him and let herself fall into his kiss.  Just for a moment, she promised herself.  

 

The moment went on, and somehow she had turned in his arms so that she was pressed up against him.  One of his hands was gently tangled in her hair, exploring the texture that had to be so strange to him.  Her own hands slipped underneath his jacket and were tracing circles on his back.  She could feel the sculpted muscles through the leather that clung as a second skin to him.  

 

Her mouth parted against his, and her tongue slipped out to taste those perfect lips.  He tasted...alien.  She might have laughed at her own characterization, but then she was too busy trying to figure out what he reminded her of.  Coffee, exotic spices, a hint of sweetness.  It was a taste as complex as the assassin himself, and the scent of leather mixed in there as well.  

 

She was quickly becoming lost in him.  Thane’s arm was a bar of steel against her back pressing her hard against him as they tasted and explored each other.  He slipped his tongue into her mouth, and the exotic spice and bitter coffee taste intensified.  His tongue was rougher than a human’s and stronger, but he went softly, inviting her to join him in this silent dance.  She felt a slight hitch in Thane’s chest as her tongue caressed the inside of his mouth.  When he reciprocated, she moaned softly.  That little sound snapped at her and she jerked back, suddenly mortified.

 

Hadn’t she just been telling him that she didn’t want to repeat the same mistakes?  Oh, but he didn’t feel like a mistake, not at all.  But it felt wrong to take his affections when she didn’t feel the same.  Or didn’t she?  Her thudding heart, sweating hands and trembling legs all pointed to a very definite attraction to the handsome drell in her arms.  He made no demands, only offered himself, and the immensity of that offer suddenly frightened her.  It was too big, too much for her to bear.  Always before in her few liaisons, she had known it was nothing more than a fling, a way to blow off some steam between missions.  She was too focused on her career to be distracted by relationships for long.  But this feeling in her heart was warning her she was standing next to the edge of a very steep cliff.  A relationship with Thane would be no mere fling.  He offered her everything, and she was very much afraid what she could offer in return wouldn’t be worthy of him.

 

“Thane, I’m sorry.  No, I didn’t mean to lead you on.  I have to stop.  I don’t know what I’m doing...”  She pushed backward until he let her go.  She backed away until there was more than an arm’s length between them.  “This is dangerous.  You’re dangerous, Thane,” she whispered.

  
“Not to you.  Never to you, siha,” he whispered back, but he didn’t follow her.

 

“I need time...space.  You don’t know what you’re getting into, Thane.”

  
“What were all those evenings we spent talking?  I know you very well, and I’m not afraid.  As you said, my time is short, and I find I do not wish to waste one more precious moment without you.  But as I said, I will respect your wishes.  If you desire more, you have only to seek me out.  I promise you will find me willing.”

 

Shepard’s stomach clenched, and it felt like a million butterflies wanted to explode from her insides.  The thought of what more she could experience with a willing Thane brought a rush of sudden heat to her face and her groin.  “I...I...I have to go back to the Normandy,” she finally stuttered.  She turned to make her escape.  There was nothing else she could call it.  She was frightened, not of Thane, but of what he represented:  a chance at something deep and scary and maybe, just maybe, wondrous beyond imagining.  

 

She was in a haze the entire time it took to return to the Normandy’s docking port, trying to figure out if she was brave enough to take him up on his offer, and what it would mean to her and her command if she did.  This was no Alliance ship.  Fraternization rules didn’t apply, but they had come into being for some very good reasons.  She didn’t want to repeat her experience with Kaidan, but this didn’t feel the same at all.  She was in unknown territory, and for once, the great Commander Shepard didn’t have a clue as to what she should do.  The pros and cons chased each other around in her mind like hamsters on a wheel until she had a headache.  

 

It wasn’t until she entered her cabin and saw the gown hanging up ready for the hanar party tomorrow night that she remembered and groaned.  She was going to have to spend an entire evening in the company of the same man who had just offered her his heart and his body, and she didn’t even know if she had said yes or no when she walked away tonight.  She fell on her bed with her arm over her face.  “I’m so screwed,” she moaned.

 

* * *

 

A/N: Just for fun, I did a personality assessment on Thane and Shepard.  You can take a free Meyers-Briggs Test online to see what archetype you are.  

 

Thane ended up being an INTJ - a “mastermind”, an analytical problem solver.  INTJs have a hunger for knowledge and strive to constantly increase their competence; they are often perfectionists with extremely high standards of performance for themselves and others. They tend to have a keen interest in self-improvement and are lifelong learners, always looking to add to their base of information and awareness.  They are typically independent and selective about their relationships, preferring to associate with people who they find intellectually stimulating.

Shepard is an ENFJ - a “teacher.”  According to one description, ENFJs are idealist organizers, driven to implement their vision of what is best for humanity. They often act as catalysts for human growth because of their ability to see potential in other people and their charisma in persuading others to their ideas. They are focused on values and vision, and are passionate about the possibilities for people.

ENFJs are typically energetic and driven, and often have a lot on their plates. They are tuned into the needs of others and acutely aware of human suffering; however, they also tend to be optimistic and forward-thinking, intuitively seeing opportunity for improvement. The ENFJ is ambitious, but their ambition is not self-serving: rather, they feel personally responsible for making the world a better place.  That sounds exactly like my Shepard.

Interestingly, according to one site I researched, INTJs are the least likely to be religious, and ENFJs are among the most likely to believe in a higher power, which is reversed from my characters.

 


	13. Sweat, Glamour, and Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone prepares for the embassy party, and Thane reveals a long-held secret in order to aid Shepard.

Kolyat landed on his back with a painful thud.

  
“Up.  Again!” his instructor yelled.

 

Stifling a groan, Kolyat clambered to his feet as quickly as his tired muscles would allow.  He had been sparring with the instructor for over an hour so far.  They had been working on grapples and throws, and as far as Kolyat could tell, his instructor seemed determined to showcase how little the younger drell knew.  With a speed that seemed almost impossible, the instructor lunged at Kolyat, reaching for his wrist.  Kolyat spun away, seeking to sweep the other drell’s feet out from under him.  The instructor responded by jumping up and to the side, ready to grab Kolyat around the neck.  Kolyat saw it coming and adrenaline gave his tired body impetus to spin in place and land a double punch against his instructor’s chest.  The blow was solid enough to rock Kolyat back and throw the instructor stunned to the ground.

 

The instructor wheezed and blinked a few times, then rubbed his chest where Kolyat’s fists had connected.  “Good,” he said with a nod.  “I think that’s enough for the day.  Finish your conditioning work, then you can go.”

 

Kolyat felt his lips quirk up in a smile barely contained.  He could count on one hand the number of compliments from this particular instructor.  He headed over to the treadmill to finish up for the morning.  It was going to be a long day, and he was in no hurry for this evening to arrive.  Tonight was the hanar embassy party, and he was scheduled to be part of the security force.  As far as he was concerned, it meant standing at attention for hours watching a bunch of overly dressed diplomats drink and eat food that he couldn’t touch.  Hopefully, Shepard would provide some interesting diversion tonight.  His father had sent an email confirming that he would be accompanying Shepard to the party tonight, and somewhat to his surprise, Kolyat found himself looking forward to seeing him again.  

 

And then there was Hama.  She said she would attend, and Kolyat could practically guarantee that she would attempt something that would get him in trouble, just because she thought it would be fun.  Still, she had a quick and interesting mind, and he enjoyed their games they played in the shadows.  She would try to get away with something, like breaking into a locked office when he was on duty, or trying to hack into his private account.  He kept an eye on her and guessed what she would attempt next, then did his best to thwart it.  If she actually succeeded, he never turned her in, and in return, she never took anything she shouldn’t and took pains to erase any signs of her presence where it shouldn’t be.

 

He had to admit, she was good.  Much better than he had originally thought when she got caught shoplifting on the Presidium.  She didn’t outwardly teach him how to thwart her, but she left enough hints that he was able to steer some of his training onto those topics.  He was improving his training scores at an admirable rate, but the one he was doing best at was understanding Hama.  Too bad he couldn’t get credit for that, he mused.  

 

She was nearly as lonely as he was.  There were so few drell on the Citadel, and even fewer young adults.  Most of the drell were in the ambassador and security staff.  The ones that were left were scattered across the Citadel.  He knew she missed Kahje, even though she would never admit it.  The one concession she made was her weekly visit to the small temple of Arashu near the docking ring.  Three days ago, she’d invited Kolyat, and already he was looking forward to next week’s visit.  He remembered going to the temple on Kahje with his mother and the peace that it had always brought her.  He had fallen out of the habit of going the last few years, but in Hama’s company, he was rediscovering a sense of peace and fulfillment of his own.  

 

He started the treadmill for his ten kilometer run and lost himself in the bittersweet memories of his youth.

 

* * *

 

Shepard was lying down on her bed, trying to relax into a mid-afternoon nap.  She ought to be tired, after spending the morning going over reports and authorizations for supplies and repairs while they were docked at the Normandy, then a couple of hours spent with Garrus on sparring and target practice.  But she couldn’t get her mind to shut off.  She kept going over the memory of Thane’s kiss last night and how good she felt for the moment, before she got overwhelmed by the enormity of his offer and ran back to the Normandy.  She’d been doing her best to avoid seeing him all day, hiding out in her cabin except for the time spent with Garrus.  Even then, she’d gone straight to the hangar bay and back, even asking Gardner to send up some lunch, saying she was too busy with reports.  Pathetic, she thought to herself.  She could face down a charging krogan or a rogue Spectre, but she ran away when faced with a commitment of the heart.

 

“Wakey, wakey, Shep,” cooed a soft voice next to her bed.

 

Shepard yanked her pistol out from under her pillow and immediately rolled off the bed in a fighting stance looking for the source of the noise.  With a shimmer, Kasumi uncloaked and took a step back toward the door.  “Take it easy, Shep.  Just wanted to tell you it was time to start getting ready.”

 

Shepard forced her breathing to slow down and her muscles to relax.  “Kasumi, how the hell did you get in here?  EDI!” she yelled.

 

“Yes, Shepard?”

 

“Why didn’t you warn me that someone was in my room?” she asked in a huff.

 

“You requested that I lock your door.  I did so.  Ms. Goto is a member of this crew, and I had no reason to suspect that she meant you any harm.  Should I modify my protocols?”  EDI’s voice was calm and measured.

 

Shepard put her hand over her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.  “Yes, EDI.  My cabin is off limits unless I say so.  Notify me if someone gets in when I have the door locked.”

 

“Of course, Shepard.  Will there be anything else?”

  
“That’s all, EDI.”

“Logging you out, Shepard.”

 

The Commander turned her glare to the petite thief.  “You.  What do you think you’re doing?  It’s only 1700.  The party isn’t for another three hours.”

 

“I know,” she said, and Shepard could hear the grin in her voice, even if she couldn’t see it under her hood.  “It’s going to take three hours to get you looking as good as I promised.  Trust me, Shep.  By the time, I’m done, you’ll knock ‘em dead.”

 

“If I wanted to knock ‘em dead, I’d wear armor and take my gun,” the Commander muttered.  “I’m just supposed to ‘woo’ them to my cause.  How does one woo a hanar, anyway?”

 

“Just be your usual charming self, and I’m sure they’ll be falling all over their tentacles to join up.”

 

“Ha ha.”

 

Kasumi tossed a towel at the Commander.  “Hit the shower.  It’s going to take a while to style your hair, so get moving, soldier.”

 

Shepard glared at the thief for a moment, but Kasumi didn’t back down.  Finally, she turned for the bathroom with another annoyed puff of breath.  “Someone better bring me dinner before I go.  I know how these functions work, and I refuse to try and make a meal out of hanar appetizers.  Probably a bunch of raw fish and seaweed,” she grumbled.

 

“That’s a delicacy in my country, Shep,” the thief called out.  “You’d love it.”

 

“Ha!” was Shepard’s only answer before she disappeared into the head.

 

When Shepard emerged from her shower, Kasumi took charge with the practiced efficiency normally only found in loadmasters.  Before she knew it, Kasumi was styling her hair in an elaborate arrangement of corkscrew curls.  Her hair had grown past military length and she’d been reluctant to cut it back.  Now the curls hung just below her shoulders, and Shepard had to admit that she liked the effect.  Kasumi moved on to her nails and applied her makeup with a deft hand, highlighting the angular planes on her face, but making no attempt to cover up the scars from her Cerberus reconstruction.  Shepard asked her about why she left them.

 

“Drell celebrate the individual patterns on their skin.  You’ll see most of the formal wear tonight leaves the arms bare.  A lot of women’s clothing exposes the torso to show off their patterns.  To tell the truth, I’m surprised Miranda picked out such a perfect dress for you.  I think with their eyesight, your scars will show up much better than to human eyes.  Maybe you can ask Thane when you see him.”

 

Shepard’s thoughts wandered to her assassin, wondering if he would be wearing something more revealing tonight.  She recalled a few times when Thane had delicately traced one of her scars, and her face flushed under the light powder.  Thankfully, Kasumi didn’t remark on it.  

 

There was a break while Kasumi went to fuss with the dress.  Shepard glanced around her desk, and stared at the holo of Kaidan that had sat gathering dust for the last few months.  She picked up the holo and before she could think more about it, she deleted the photo and tossed it into a drawer.  Kaidan had been a fling, nothing more.  She thought it had been something deeper, but if that was the case, he would never have treated her like he did.  If you really cared about someone, you didn't call them a traitor and walk out on them without even listening to their side.  No, that chapter of her life was done with.  No point in torturing herself by staring at his picture every time she sat at her desk.   

 

She felt better already, although the empty spot where the holo had been bugged her.  What she needed was a replacement.  She dug the holo frame back out of the drawer and flipped through her omni-tool's gallery.  She smiled when she found the holo she was looking for and transferred it to the frame.  It was a holo from Eternity on Nos Astra.  Some photographer had been going around taking pictures, and he had snapped one of her team while they were out relaxing.  Garrus, Grunt and she were mugging for the camera.  Jack was making rabbit ears behind Miranda's head, while Jacob was trying hard to look like he wasn't looking at Miranda.  Mordin was completely absorbed in his omni-tool and unaware of the photograph being taken.  Joker had raised a glass of something green.  She laughed again when she saw Thane.  He had managed to duck behind Grunt so that all anyone could see was a leather-clad shoulder and arm.  Even Samara had joined them and was sitting as regally as if she were at court.  Zaeed was missing.  She had a vague recollection of him finding a willing asari partner and coming back to the Normandy two days later.

 

She set the frame back with its new holo and smiled in satisfaction.  That was much better.  Now, instead of focusing on a lost past, she could see what she was fighting for.  These were the people she considered her family.  

 

Gardner did indeed bring her dinner up to her room.  Kasumi stopped him at the door, telling Shepard that she wanted to keep her look a secret until she was finished.  “You know there’s a betting pool going on, right?” she asked.  At Shepard’s surprised look, Kasumi nodded.  “The outside bet is that you’ll tell me and Miranda to go to hell and show up in armor anyway.  I think only Grunt took that one.  Other variations include the type of dress and how tall your heels are.”

 

“Oh good lord,” Shepard moaned.  “Do these people not have anything better to do with their time?”

 

Kasumi laughed.  “Of course they do, but you dressing up is a rare event.  Of course they’re going to gossip about it.  You know they’ll all find something to do in CIC about the time you’re scheduled to leave, right?  You should just tell Kelly that you’ll make an appearance in the mess hall before you go so everyone can see.”

 

Shepard rolled her eyes.  “I’m sure you already did that for me, didn’t you?”

 

“That would be telling, Shep,” the other woman replied serenely.

 

Shepard ignored her in favor of reviewing the data pad in front of her.  Thane had sent her guidelines on hanar and drell social protocols and niceties, and she was trying to grasp the subtle differences between drell formal and informal conversational cues.  Hanar were surprisingly easy; it was all formal with them.  You practically had to be family before you were granted any sort of informal discourse with a hanar, and she certainly wasn’t going to reach that level over the course of one evening.  Drell, however, had their own complex society that had additional layers from living with the hanar for several centuries, resulting in an amalgam of situations that seemed to make no sense at all.  At least Thane had left her a note at the bottom saying that she couldn’t go wrong by using the formal forms of address, even if she would be thought of as overly rigid and political.   _Ha!_ she thought.  Anyone who knew her well at all would know that political was about as far from describing her as one could get.  

 

Finally Kasumi pronounced her creation finished and urged Shepard to take a look in the mirror.  Astonished, she put her hands to her face, as if checking to see that the image in the mirror really was her.  She looked like an exotic starlet ready for an awards ceremony rather than the rough and tumble persona she usually affected.  Her auburn hair hung in sleek corkscrews that twisted about her face. When she went to touch them, Kasumi caught her hand and made a little gesture of no.  “It took a lot of work to get your hair that smooth.  Don’t touch until you leave the party.  Same with your face.”

 

Shepard looked back at the mirror.  Her blue-gray eyes looked darker and larger with Kasumi’s expertly applied makeup, and the blush highlighted the planes of her face, making it look more angular than normal.  She and Kasumi had gone round and round on the lip gloss, with Shepard flatly refusing the dark red lipstick until Kasumi had given in and applied a lighter coat of tinted gloss.  While she normally had no use for fingernail polish, she admired Kasumi’s paint job.  The Spectre logo was picked out in fine detail on a dark blue background on each of her ten nails.

  
The dress was elaborate enough to not need any jewelry, so Shepard slipped on her shoes, taking a moment to find her balance.  Now she felt like she positively towered over the small thief.  “All right,” she said breathing out slowly as she slid her omni-tool over her wrist.  “I think I’m ready.”

 

“You look amazing, Shep.  I promised you would, after all.  Now go get your date.”

 

Shepard felt glamorous as she headed for the lift and CIC, and she refused to let Kasumi’s last words throw her stomach into another nervous fit.

 

Just as Kasumi had predicted, most of the crew were present on CIC deck, pretending to be working on something.  A few, like Joker and Jack, were unapologetically lounging against the wall.  When the lift doors opened, a noticeable hush fell over the deck, and Shepard could feel the stares of over a dozen crew as she stepped out.

 

Joker whistled in appreciation.  “Nice, Commander.  You should dress up more often.  You know, bring a little glitz and glam to the Normandy.”

 

Shepard harrumphed.  “Hours better spent on my armor and weapons, I say.  But thanks for the compliment, Joker.”  She looked around for Thane, but he was unexpectedly absent.  Garrus was by Kelly and looking her over carefully.  “Hey, Garrus.  So what do you think?”

 

The turian tilted his head quizzically to the side then shrugged.  “I don’t find it offensive, if that’s what you’re asking.  Seems a little impractical for most things, especially considering that humans don’t have natural armor.”

 

“Well, it’s good to know I won’t offend the turian population, at least.  Let’s hope the hanar and drell response is a bit more enthusiastic.”

 

“How are you even supposed to run in those things?” Garrus asked as he gestured at her feet.  

  
“Who says I’d run anywhere?” she countered.  “They make great weapons when you’re kicking.”

 

“Unless they’re wearing armor.  Or they’re a turian,” he responded.

  
“You sound like you’re convinced I’m going to be attacked.  This is the Citadel, not Omega.  I highly doubt some merc gang is going attack me on the Presidium.”

 

“Except for the fact that you seem to attract trouble, Shepard.”

 

“The Commander will not be undefended, Garrus.  I give my word,” came Thane’s rumbling voice behind her.  Shepard turned and barely kept her mouth from gaping open.  Gone was the assassin’s typical form hugging leather.  Instead he wore a sleeveless flowing surcoat over a pair of straight legged pants and a shirt with long, close-fitting sleeves.  A long belt was wrapped twice around his waist with a very intricately carved dagger hanging at his side.  She could just see the grip of a very modern semi-automatic peeking out from behind his back.  Both the surcoat and shirt were open to his mid-chest, and the silver torc had been replaced with a heavy and elaborate golden pendant set with a large sapphire and a pearl.  The surcoat hung down to his knees and was slit up the sides for ease of movement.  He still wore soft black boots that made no noise when he walked, although these matched the odd formality of his outfit better than his normal boots.  To Shepard, he looked like an alien knight dressed all in black from a medieval vid.  All that was missing was a shield with his heraldry.  

 

She felt a sudden rush of heat to her face when she realized she’d been staring at him in front of most of her crew.  Ripping her gaze away, she saw that most of the crew were also mesmerized with the change in their reticent assassin, especially the female crew.  She caught Joker’s eyes, and damn if he didn’t wink at her.  She fought down the feeling of awkwardness, and if she was honest with herself, the faint stirrings of jealousy at the openly admiring looks some of her female crew members were turning on Thane.  He seemed serene and unaware of the muted stir he was causing.

 

“We should go,” Thane said as he held his arm out to her.  “The hanar appreciate promptness, even at social events.”

  
Shepard tentatively laid her hand over his, feeling the warmth and slight roughness from the fine scales on the back of his hand.  Together they walked to the airlock.  Behind them, Joker called out, “Have fun storming the castle!”  More quietly, she heard him say, “Pay up, Jack.  No armor.  You lose.”

 

Shepard rolled her eyes.  Of course those two would be involved in the betting.  She heard Jack snarl, “Here’s your hundred creds.  Don’t spend it all on porn, you perv.”  Thankfully, Joker’s reply was lost as the airlock cycled closed.

 

As they made their way to the Presidium and the hanar embassy, Shepard felt awkward and ill at ease in Thane’s presence, something that had never happened even from the first time they’d met.  Thane kept his silence, while Shepard wracked her brain for something to say.  She latched on to something that Kasumi had said.  “I thought drell dressed on formal occasions to show off their skin and markings.  I’m surprised you’re so covered up.  I like the look, though.”

 

Thane didn’t respond for so long that Shepard wondered if she had said something that offended him.  “I promised to give you my full support, siha.  Doubtless the hanar at the embassy will know who I am and some of my history, but this outfit will proclaim it to any who do not already know.”  At her puzzled look, he continued.  “You are correct. This is not typical drell formal wear.  It is based on historical garments from centuries ago on Rakhana.  This is the garb of one who has been granted the highest honor in drell society for the protection of another at the risk of one’s own life.”

 

“Sounds like our Star of Terra, except we don’t get a whole new outfit for it.”  Her tentative smile disappeared when her joke fell flat.  Thane seemed on edge, and she couldn’t figure out why.

 

“It is not just a medal, siha.  To any drell, I am recognizable on sight as an avatar of our greatest warrior.  We call him the Guardian.  It is a story we tell our children in their nurseries, and we continue telling it in variations in literature, song, and movies.  He’s a mythic figure who our stories say watches over us, occasionally taking mortal form and coming among us to protect us from some great evil.  Since we’ve come to Kahje, only two others have ever been granted this honor.  The last one was over one hundred fifty years ago.”

  
“Okay.  Should I say congratulations?”

 

“Please, siha.  This is difficult to explain to an outsider.”

 

Shepard looked away and couldn’t decide if she was irritated or intrigued.  Both, apparently, but she held her tongue and let Thane tell his story.

 

“Twenty one years ago, there was an attempt on the life of the First Singer of the hanar.  I had only been working for the Guild for a few years, but was already in high demand for my services.  There were some disturbing discrepancies coming from the hanar Primacy and from the Guild of Shadow Walkers.  The assassins’ guild,” he clarified for her.  “I followed up on my own, against the wishes of my handlers, and stumbled upon the assassination plot.  The entire tale would take too long to explain, but by the end, I had saved the life of the First Singer and exposed a coup d’état within the Primacy, which was subsequently put down very quietly.  The hanar dislike any notion of discord being associated with their government.  For my actions, I was awarded this honor and adopted into the First Singer’s family, but because it was associated with a coup attempt, it was never made public.  Not that I minded.  An assassin never seeks the limelight.

 

“Nevertheless, there were rumors that could not be dispelled.  Rumors of a shadowy hero who saved the life of the First Singer and single-handedly saved both the hanar and drell people from a vicious military takeover that would have reduced the drell from a client race to a slave race.  Since the story was never made public, the rumors grew over the years.  Not even Irikah knew of my part in that event.  If she had, she might not have insisted on seeing the action vid that came out a few years later.  I will admit, though, that the actor they got to portray the hero was very handsome.”  He ducked his head, and Shepard wondered if he was actually embarrassed at the anonymous adoration.  

 

“By wearing this garb tonight, I will be proclaiming the truth to the legend, and perhaps there are some hanar who will be displeased at the public verification of those rumors from the past.  But I will also be providing you with the undisputed support of a hero of both the drell and the hanar, and I deemed that a worthwhile risk to take.  It will remind the hanar that they still owe me a sizeable debt, one I have yet to collect on.  Perhaps it will help sway them to your cause.”

 

Shepard stopped, forcing Thane to do the same.  “Thane, just how big a deal is this?”

 

He took a deep breath and looked toward the Presidium ring.  “It is a very big deal, Shepard.  As I said earlier, an assassin does not willingly enter the limelight.  Once I step into the embassy tonight, my anonymity is over forever.  It may not seem so important compared to the human or asari culture, but it will send shockwaves through the drell, and most likely the hanar as well.”

 

Even though he was holding himself erect with his customary perfect posture, there was an undercurrent of anxiety about him, Shepard thought.  She caught him drumming his fingers against his leg in an uncharacteristic move.  “Thane, you don’t have to do this.  I’m used to people staring and talking about me.   You can come simply as my companion.”

 

Thane took her hand in both of his.  “No, siha.  My days as an assassin are over.  My place is at your side, and my duty is to give you all the support I can provide.  Allow me to fulfill my promise to you.”

 

Shepard knew she was still missing part of the picture, and she had a feeling this was even more important that Thane had said, but she could sense how vital it was to him.  For now, they were united in their goal of preparing the galaxy for the Reaper invasion.  She had sworn to use every means at her disposal, and she couldn’t throw away an opportunity like this.  She nodded and tucked her hand back around Thane’s arm.  “You honor me, Thane.  Thank you.”  She only hoped he could sense the fullness of her gratitude that was so poorly expressed in so few words.   

  
They continued on, the distance between them, both physical and emotional, closed.  The die was cast.  Let the fireworks commence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I expanded on the drell mythology in another short story called "Guardian." It can be found in my collection, Never Let Me Go. 
> 
> Buche created a piece of fanart for that piece, and you can view it here: http://bubucheart.deviantart.com/art/Arashu-and-Kalahira-641710658


	14. Danger In The Undertow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard and Thane navigate the perilous waters of galactic politics. Kolyat discovers part of his past.

Shepard was glad that Thane had confided in her before they entered the hanar embassy suite.  Otherwise, she would have been terrified that the sudden silence and stares were because she had made a fatal faux pas just on setting foot inside the room.  Instead, she scanned the room, taking in as many expressions as she could, while Thane stood calmly at her side.  Thankfully she had gotten a lot better at reading drell over the past few months, and most of them in the party weren’t nearly as stoic as Thane.  Most of them registered shock and surprise, with no small amount of awe following the initial surprise.  At that moment, she would have given just about anything to understand hanar visual language, because half of them were lighting up like fireworks.  There were some asari and turians in the room, but no other humans.  The asari and turians looked as lost as she felt.

 

The drell attendant at the door stuttered over their introductions, but taking her cue from Thane, she nodded serenely and stepped forward with him.  He led her to a reddish hanar who floated about two inches above the other hanar in the room.  In her heels, Shepard was almost eye to eye with it, or whatever they possessed for eyes.  

 

Thane spoke first.  “First Singer, this one has the utmost pleasure of introducing you to the esteemed Commander Shepard, Savior of the Citadel, Hero of the Skyllian Blitz, and fortunate one to behold the vision of the Enkindlers upon Eden Prime.  Commander, this one would bring to your attention the First Singer of the Melodious Circle of the Illuminated Primacy, the one who speaks first for all hanar on Kahje.”

 

Shepard inclined her head toward the Singer.  “This one is delighted to make the acquaintance of the First Singer, an honor most unexpected.”

 

The First Singer flashed blue and green, which meant that he was relaxed and happy, according to Thane’s notes.  “Nonsense, Commander.  You honor this one, indeed all the hanar with your presence tonight.  When Milar mentioned that you were traveling with such a distinguished drell in your crew, it was only too eager to extend an invitation for you to visit on this evening.  You keep exalted company, Commander.”  

 

“Sere Krios has been an invaluable member of the Normandy’s crew, First Singer, and this one and her crew are much in his debt.”

 

“You are not the only ones in his debt, Commander,” the First Singer replied.  

 

Shepard snuck a look at Thane, but he remained as calm as ever, nodding slightly to the First Singer at its comment.  She hated that the hanar spoke through voice modulators.  She couldn’t tell if its comment had been begrudging or admiring, and knowing how it felt could make all the difference in her approach tonight.  For now, she decided to ignore the comment until she could get a better feel for the lay of the land.  “This one has learned much of interest of the hanar and drell since Sere Krios joined the Normandy and welcomes the opportunity to build new bonds of friendship between us.”

 

The First Singer flashed more blue and green as it replied, “Please, Commander, would you favor this one by calling it by its face name, Ooledoveh?  It is terribly rude of this one, but it wishes soon to hear of your encounter with the beacon of the Enkindlers.  Your experience has been much speculated about upon Kahje, and the dry reports released by your Alliance have the feeling of many details left unspoken.  Many feel that such an experience is akin to touching the intimate soul of the exalted Enkindlers.  This one’s government has been requesting access to the beacon ever since the event.  With the hanar’s vast familiarity with Enkindler artifacts, it naturally makes sense that this one’s people would be most capable of analyzing the remains and perhaps returning it to life.”

 

Shepard managed to restrain her shudder at the thought of that beacon humming back to life and did her best to shove the horrible memories to the back of her brain while she plastered a fake smile on her face and desperately hoped the hanar wasn’t adept at reading human expressions.  “Of course, Ooledoveh.  This one would be happy to pass along the minute grains of information that remain from that encounter.  Perhaps we could meet again at a later time and talk of that and other things.  This one believes we have much to offer each other.”

 

“It thinks perhaps you have already taken one of the best things the hanar have ever had the honor to produce,” it sang out in its modulated voice.  Shepard was completely lost until she realized it was pointing its snout toward Thane.  He spoke, and she turned her attention to him.

 

“There is no more time to hide in shadows, First Singer.  Danger approaches us all, and it is the duty of all sentient souls to offer their skills to avert it.  Thus does this humble servant do as he must.  For it is said that a single pebble in the right place may avert an avalanche.”

 

“Pebbles are often ground to dust in such an avalanche, Guardian.”

 

“Dust and seawater await us all, First Singer.  What distinguishes each of us is the manner of our passage through life.”

  
“The words you speak are the same as uttered by itself numerous times in the Melodious Circle.  Indeed, this one has sung unending choruses of such to its companions, but such boldness and generosity as distinguishes the Guardian are by definition, and also to this one’s sorrow, lacking in individuals as a whole.  Still, adverse circumstances tend to bring out noble tendencies, and the example illuminated by a brave few may swirl multitudes along in their wake.  This one will talk again to you soon, Commander, to see what else may be offered to each other.”  It dipped down a few inches until its tentacles brushed the floor, then floated off to another bunch of hanar.  

 

Shepard breathed a sigh of relief and headed for the bar.  “I don’t see how you can talk to them for any length of time.  I’m going to have a major headache before the night is over,” she complained.  

  
“It’s an acquired skill,” Thane admitted.  “I have to say, I did not realize the First Singer itself would be on the Citadel.  It rarely leaves Kahje. There must be some very important business with the Council.  Perhaps the hanar are pushing again for a Council seat.”

  
“Well, I wish them luck,” she said absently.  “Wait, no.  Then I’d have to talk to them on the Council, and hell, I’m sure I’d insult him...it so badly they’d strip me of my Spectre status.  Ugh, I need a drink.”  She stopped at the bar and asked, “I don’t suppose you happen to have any vodka back there, do you?” not expecting a positive reply.

 

The bartender, a tan drell with dark brown markings, nodded.  “We do indeed, Commander.”  He pulled out a bottle of very expensive vodka and poured an entire wine glass full for her.

 

She worked hard to keep from grinning until she had turned away.  “Now just why would the hanar stock a top shelf Earth vodka when I’m the only human in the room?  Did you have something to do with this, Thane?”

 

He nodded acknowledgement.  “It was Miss Chambers’ idea, actually.  She supplied me the information, and I passed it along to Kolyat.”

 

Shepard took a sip and sighed.  “Oh yeah, nice and smooth.  Apparently, Kelly forgot to mention that vodka is served in shots instead of glasses.  Not that I’m complaining.”  She took another sip and looked around the room.  “Thane, why are we still alone?  Am I supposed to be the one going up to people, or are they still in awe of your legendary status come to life?”

 

“They are allowing you to control the pace of conversation, Shepard.  You are the topic of everyone’s conversation, however.”

 

“Not you?”

 

“The hanar know I can understand their visual speech and are far too polite to speak about one in front of that person.”

 

“Um, don’t they realize you’ll tell me what they’re saying?”

 

For the first time, a glint of humor came over Thane’s face and he turned to face her.  “No, it has not occurred to them.  They completely trust their drell attendants in the embassy to guard their secrets.  I don’t think they have entirely processed the fact that my loyalty lies with you now, and not with them.  Do nothing to suggest otherwise to keep your advantage,” he advised.

 

“Hrm, I’ll keep that in mind.  So what are they saying about me?”

  
“Mostly approval for your actions in the Battle of the Citadel two years ago, some serious concern about your current connection to Cerberus.  One or two are convinced that you have achieved a...” he searched for the right word, “holy status because of your experience with the beacon on Eden Prime.  They think you carry a spark of the Enkindlers inside you now.”

 

Shepard made a face, then remembering where she was, quickly schooled it back into a polite semi-smile.  “Yeah, well, I guess they’re right about that, but it’s certainly nothing holy.  About as far from it as you can get, actually.  What about the drell?”

 

“I think they are still trying to come to terms with the fact that a Guardian truly exists and is here tonight.”

 

She reached out a hand to touch his arm.  “Thanks again, Thane.  So, who should we talk to next?” she asked, turning to look around the room.

 

Thane subtly directed her attention to a female drell who was a dark orange in coloration with very dark markings.  Shepard looked with interest, noting a few subtle differences between the sexes.  The female drell lacked mammary glands, not a surprise since their young were born capable of eating solid food.  But she still had pronounced hips compared to the males in the room.  The fringes around her head were also longer and extended further down her neck.  They were studded with numerous small gold hoops intermixed with gemstone studs.  She had a substantial amount of matching jewelry in terms of bangles and custom finger rings.  She wore what looked like a pair of dark green Bermuda shorts, and a sleeveless shirt that had a plunging neckline all the way to her naval.  A pair of gold gladiator sandals wrapped around her feet and calves.  Looking around, Shepard noticed that most of the drell, except those that were obviously security, were dressed similarly.  It gave her an odd feeling of being at a beach party and being very overdressed.  “That’s Milar Strychae, the chief drell diplomat on the Citadel.  She doesn’t have the official rank of Ambassador, since our population is so small, but unofficially, she manages the issues pertinent to us.  We should offer our greetings.”

 

With a nod, Shepard headed in her direction.  Again, Thane introduced them, this time without all the flowery language.

 

“Commander Shepard, let me say that it is an honor to meet you.  We are all indebted to you for your heroic actions two years ago.”  Milar looked at Shepard with that same infinitely deep pool of calm that Thane usually projected.  

 

“Well, ma’am, I would say that I was just doing my job, except that the Council didn’t envision that my job would actually entail saving the Citadel from an advance vanguard of the Reapers.”  Shepard wondered if her blunt statement would provoke denial of the Reapers in the drell ambassador as it did in the Council members.  She imagined Kasumi and Miranda both throwing their hands up in exasperation at her bluntness, but hell, she’d never been fond of politics.  Instead, she got a wry smile from the orange drell.  

 

“You’re just as I expected, Commander,” Milar said with a slight salute of her wineglass.  “Straight to the point.”

 

Shepard gave her a wry, strained smile of her own in reply.  “We don’t have a lot of time to sit around twiddling our thumbs and debating the issue, Sera Strychae.  We’re vastly outclassed and in some deep trouble if we don’t start making preparations now.”

 

Milar hrmmed deep in her throat as she glanced between Shepard and Thane.  She could feel Thane shift his posture.  She rubbed her ear as she felt a strange sort of itch deep in her ear.  She had the strangest feeling they were communicating on a level she couldn’t understand.  It was entirely possible.  In spite of all the time she spent with Thane, she’d learned the man had secrets upon secrets and was very chary about letting a single one go.  Milar surprised her by tucking her arm through Shepard’s and guiding her to walk across the room.  Thane fell in on Shepard’s other side.  “Oh, I believe you, Commander.  I’ve studied the vids and done my own investigation.  The members of your crew on the first Normandy have some very impressive credentials, and they are not known for telling tales.  Even the STG’s reports validated most of what you claimed on Virmire, although of course Kirrahe didn’t have first-hand observations of your conversation with Sovereign.  I must say, it’s a shame that the one member of your crew who didn’t validate your story with the same fervor as the others was the human survivor, Staff Commander Alenko.  I think if he had displayed the same outspokenness as Officer Vakarian, Urdnot Wrex, and Tali’Zorah, it might have gone a long way toward changing Udina’s opinion.  Even Liara T’Soni was particularly persuasive, and she’s barely more than a child among her people.”

 

Shepard stopped abruptly, forcing Milar to stop as well, while she struggled to hold her face expressionless in spite of the fact that Milar’s words were tearing her apart.  On the one hand, hearing how her former crew had backed her up so vehemently that even the drell ambassador had taken notice moved her almost to tears.  It was warring with the other part of her that couldn’t decide if she was heart-broken again over Kaidan’s lack of confidence or if she should hunt him down and beat his ass into a pulp.  She missed the look that Milar and Thane exchanged behind her back, with Thane frowning slightly at the ambassador

 

Milar continued talking as if nothing were wrong.  “Well, as I was saying, I was convinced of the veracity of your story, and I agree that we need to start taking some measures to protect ourselves.  As you know, the hanar are not a militaristic race, and the drell are too small numerically to have much impact on galactic politics, unfortunately.  However, I was able to start some investigations with a few like-minded hanar into the Prothean ruins on Kahje.  Based on the information you provided, we have a better idea of what to search for.  The hanar have been exploring the ruins for millennia now, unfortunately, to no avail in our current quest.  However, the ruins are massive and the hanar acknowledge that they haven’t explored all of them yet.  I realize we are searching for a...”she paused to find the right words, “needle in a haystack, but perhaps the key we need to fight the Reapers still lies hidden there.”

 

Shepard swallowed hard against the lump in her throat and nodded to the drell ambassador.  “Thank...thank you, Sera.  We will need every advantage in the upcoming war, and it may very well be that your investigations will give us the key to defeating them.  I wish with all my being that that is the case.”

  
“As do I, Commander,” Milar responded fervently.  “Now, I believe there are some hanar who are extremely anxious to meet the human who holds a spark of the Enkindlers in her soul.”  Shepard barely managed to avoid scowling, although apparently not well enough, based on the drell’s next words.  “If I may offer you some advice, Commander?  Simply nod and tell them that their light encompasses the entire universe, and to try and interpret it for one person or even one race would be as if to explore the world with all of your senses muffled, never knowing if you were touching truth or sliding along the slope to a lie.  Be vague, and they’ll adore you for it.  With the others who aren’t so enamored of the Protheans, I would suggest that you tell them that the Enkindlers taught us as children, so that as adults it is up to us to make our own light in the universe.  And finally, I know that you have another cycle before the Normandy is scheduled to depart the Citadel.  I do hope that you and Thane would do me the honor of having dinner at my home.  I would invite Kolyat as well, Thane.  You should be impressed with his progress here.”

 

As Milar left them, Shepard sighed and turned toward Thane.  “God give me strength to get through tonight.  Have I mentioned how much I hate this stuff?”

 

Thane answered with that peculiar rumble that meant he was amused.  “Every five minutes, siha.  Perhaps you should consider this a different type of battlefield, with words as bullets, and this is simply an opportunity to improve your skills.”  
  
“I’ve tried,” she replied glumly.  “Doesn’t work.”  She looked at her wine glass of vodka and seriously considered chugging it.  Better sense won out though, and with another sigh, she took the smallest sip.  “Alright, show me who I should talk to next.”

 

Thane nodded to a group of hanar clustered near the table of refreshments.  Just as Shepard had feared, it looked like a bunch of raw fish and strangely colored vegetables.  “This particular group contains the more conservative and religious members of the Circle, so I suggest you take Milar’s advice and come up with platitudes celebrating the Protheans and their advanced civilization.”

 

“And keep my mouth shut about them actually being the Collectors and my absolute determination to blast them out of existence?”  Before Thane could even sigh in exasperation, she added, “I know.  I promise.  Happy smile.”

* * *

This party was supremely boring, at least from the perspective of the hanar embassy’s newest security officer.  Kolyat stood on the second floor gallery overlooking the main party down below.  For the last two hours, he’d been watching Shepard and his father meet and greet various hanar and drell delegates.  It was hard to tell from up here, but it looked like Shepard was getting tired of talking.  Not that he could blame her.  He’d been around hanar his entire life, and he didn’t particularly enjoy speaking to them.  At least as a security guard, no one expected him to interact with the hanar any further than exchanges of pleasantries.

 

As the one with least seniority on the roster, he’d been given the duty of watching over the administrative offices.  Still, he didn’t think that even the security guards down on the main floor would have a lot to do tonight.  The most dangerous thing to happen tonight was likely to be an inadvertent insult by one of the guests, which would of course be immediately forgiven by the hanar as a manifestation of cultural differences.  He stayed in the shadows of the second floor balcony as much as possible, watching what the hanar were saying.  It was harder to figure out what the drell and aliens were saying, but he enjoyed the challenge of making up plausible stories and seeing if it fit with their body language.  In his head right now, the asari and turian couple by the buffet were arranging an impromptu assignation that had to be kept secret because of their respective positions in their embassies, but he also allowed that they could be talking about trade policies on asari _riishi_ cloth that allowed for one or the other to get a kickback.  It kept his mind pleasantly occupied for a while.

 

A hiss from the office door behind him snapped his attention back to the balcony.  “Kolyat, get over here.”  

 

He located her almost immediately. “Hama, get out of there.  Those offices are supposed to be closed tonight.”

 

“I’ve found it, Kolyat.  You have to see this!”

 

“Hama, this is NOT the time or place for one of your tricks.  We could both get in serious trouble. Now get out.”  

 

“Kolyat, I’m serious.  You have to see this.  It’ll only take a moment.”

 

She wasn’t moving and Kolyat sighed, praying to Arashu for patience and guidance in dealing with a girl only a few years his junior.  “What?” he snapped.

 

“It’s your father,” she whispered.

 

Kolyat glanced back down at the floor.  His father was standing beside Shepard, who was talking to a group of hanar.  Absently, he identified them as the minority leaders of the fundamentalist faction of the Melodious Circle.  “What about him?” he asked again.  He was still trying to grapple with the fact that his father, the mercenary who’d abandoned him and his mother, was the same legendary figure that he and his friends had idolized when they were young.  He’d been thinking about it all evening, his thoughts darting around it, then forcing himself to think of something else when it became too painful to reconcile the two perceptions of his father.  Hence the storytelling in his head about others at the party.

 

“I cracked the security on his files.  Don’t you want to see what really happened?”  She sounded extraordinarily pleased with herself.  She probably had cause.

 

Kolyat’s head snapped back to stare at her.  “You did what?”

 

“Come on!” she hissed again.  “I can only keep the security sniffers from noticing for a few more minutes.”   She saw him look at the camera over the door.  “I fixed it all.  The cameras and other sensors are all looped.  But we’ve only got a couple more minutes.  Now move it, you idiot.  We won’t get this chance again.”

 

Against his better judgment, Kolyat found his feet walking toward the office door.  The chance to open a window into his father’s past, and his own, was too tempting to pass up.  Even now, he knew so little about his father, and what he did know was so hard to reconcile with the lies and obfuscations his family had told him over the years.  “What did you do, Hama?”

 

She grabbed his hand and led him through the outer reception office at a faster pace.  “I knew that my mom had to have access to your dad’s files, so I snuck in here a little while ago and hacked her computer access.  I figured it would be hard coded to only open here, not at home, and I was right.”  Now she was shoving him into Milar’s office and into the unofficial ambassador’s chair.  “Look!” she ordered and pointed at the screen.  

 

Kolyat saw a list of files and videos with his father’s name on them.  He reached out to touch one at random when Hama hissed at him.  “Wait.”  She handed him a seersilk glove.  “No prints or DNA.  Don’t want to leave traces we were here.”  

 

He absently donned the glove and opened the file.  Scanning through it, he saw photos of his father at a much younger age.  He wasn’t much older than Kolyat was now, but he still had that unshakeable aura of calm and confidence.  Absently, Kolyat wondered if that had been drilled into him by the assassin training, or if it was innate to his nature.  

 

“Sixty seconds,” the girl muttered, “then you have to shut it down.”  On a second screen, she was typing furiously.  “I can’t download anything.  You have to read it here.”

 

Kolyat started opening multiple files, then found a video with Summary in its title.  It was eight minutes long, and he forwarded it to near the end.  He watched in astonishment as an equally young Milar narrated into the camera.  Hama also stared at the screen, equally surprised.  

 

“...undoubtedly saved the Council from a hostile takeover by the forces associated with the fringe group Xeche.  If they had been successful, analysis indicates that they would have executed fifty to sixty percent of the existing Council members, primarily the more progressive members, and then taken steps to ensure the subjugation of the drell.  Unfortunately, Xeche has deeply penetrated the Guild of Shadow Walkers.  Attached is a list of trainers and handlers, along with active agents believed to be directly under their control.  We recommend they all be eliminated.  The risk to the Council and indeed the fabric of our society is too great to be ignored.  Thane Krios risked everything when he discovered the discrepancies in the Guild workings.  If he had not defied orders and followed up on his instincts, the assassination plot against the First Singer would have succeeded.  He is still young and understandably shaken by the events of the past week.  Our office recommends rest and therapy, then putting him back in the field.  We feel that after another five years of fieldwork, he would make an excellent candidate for Guild Master.  Unfortunately, that leaves us without a suitable replacement right now, since the current Master was executed last night for his part in the plot.  We have come up with two possibilities.  Analysis of each is linked...”

 

Kolyat skimmed further, but Milar continued talking about future options.  He was skimming the written documents, but it was so dense that it was hard to make out much of import.  He jumped when the screen went black and Hama grabbed his hand.  “Time’s up,” she muttered.  Unresisting, he allowed her to drag him back through the offices and onto the balcony.  His mind was buzzing along at a million klicks a second.  It wasn’t until he was back on the balcony with Hama hiding in the shadows that he realized his radio was buzzing and his ear clip had fallen off.  He fumbled with it until it was attached to his frill, and he heard his commander yelling for him.  

  
“Krios here, sir,” he interjected.

 

“Where in the double hells have you been, Krios?” Captain Sokje barked.  As Kolyat stumbled over an answer, he continued.  “Tell me later.  I have a blip indicating the Ambassador’s office may have been breached, and all hell is breaking loose down here in the party.  It may be a distraction for someone to break in upstairs.  Do a sweep of the area.  I’m sending Ruilo and Tcharkent to back you up.”

 

Kolyat glanced over the balcony to see the party below in chaos.  Shepard was still talking to the minority leaders, but her body language was clearly antagonistic.  His father was close by Shepard’s side, as if to protect her.  He absently rubbed his jaw as he wondered if she would punch the hanar, too.  The leader of the minority faction was flashing angry yellows and oranges, something about her being a fraud and speaking heresy.  Other hanar were expressing shock and embarrassment, but Kolyat couldn’t look any longer.  He turned his attention back to Hama, who had retreated to the back staircase and was typing furiously on her omni tool.  Keeping an eye out for his backup, he strode over to her.  “Hama?”

 

Without looking up, she said, “The security sniffers woke up a few seconds before I was ready.  I’ve already gone back in and changed the alarm to look like a power fluctuation.  You’ll have to sell it as a case of bad timing.”

 

Kolyat picked up the sound of heavy feet climbing the other staircase.  “Go on, get out of here. I’ll cover.”  He ran to the ambassador’s office door and used his security card to open it, flicking on the lights as he went.  They hadn’t actually issued him a working sidearm yet, but he knew that the office was clean, so he went on in to Milar’s office.  He made sure to put his hands on her desk and chair as he leaned in to examine underneath it, so he’d have a plausible excuse in case any of his DNA was found there.  Of course, it meant that Tcharkent yelled at him the moment he entered the office for contaminating a potential crime scene.  Kolyat shrugged it off and headed back to the balcony hallway to run diagnostics on the alarm system while the other two cleared the hanar ambassador’s office.  True to her word, it looked like a random power fluctuation had caused the door sensor to read open.  

 

Tcharkent and Ruilo came out to see if he had discovered anything.  Under Hama’s tutelage, he was developing a reputation for electronic troubleshooting, and they stood looking over his shoulder as he scrolled through the data.  “Nothing here,” he told them.  “Looks like a power drop caused the sensor to think the door had been opened.  No record of entry, nothing else out of place.”

 

Ruilo did his own scan of the electronics with his omni tool and frowned.  “Some strange readings.  I’ll put in a work order to replace the system tomorrow, just in case.”

 

Kolyat jerked a thumb toward the main gallery.  “What’s going on down there?”

 

“It’s crazy,” Tcharkent told him.  “That fringe group from the Oligetti’s been agitating for weeks now since Shepard’s report on the Collectors leaked, and just now the cell leader accused her of heresy, insulted her and all humans, then went on to insult the drell on Kahje as freeloaders.  Claimed your father betrayed the Compact and should be treated as a traitor now.  Got so worked up that it started speaking in the first person.  She told it she’d be happy to drop it off on Horizon and it could go take its chances against the Protheans itself if it was so enamored of them.  You don’t wanna go down there right now, Krios.  It’s ugly.  All the hanar are in an uproar, and the First Singer itself is in the middle of the whole thing.  We’re supposed to usher the aliens out quietly.  You stay up here and make sure that door alarm was just a power problem and not someone trying to break in.  Want me to ask Sokje to send you some backup?”

 

“Nah, I’m good.”  Kolyat waited until they headed back down, then went to look down at the main floor.  By now, Milar and his father had pulled Shepard off to the side while a group of hanar from the ambassadorial staff surrounded the Oligetti group.  His attention was torn between trying to read what the hanar were saying and watching Shepard and his father.  He was also hampered by not being able to see the full range of hanar speech.  He should take Sokje up on his offer for the eye modification surgery.  Odd, he thought, that of everyone in the room, Milar and his father were the most calm and composed. Compact training, he wondered?  He could see Shepard gesturing angrily, while his father interposed himself between her and the rest of the room.  

 

The other drell in the room were much more upset.  There were angry gestures toward the Oligetti group and the tenor of the words was shrill with hostility.  Kolyat was surprised at the level of rancor in the room.  He really hadn’t paid much attention to politics while on Kahje, partly because none of his extended family was seriously involved in local politics and partly because he didn’t care about anyone else’s problems.  

 

He wasn’t too surprised when Hama reappeared next to him looking over the railing.  “You shouldn’t be here,” he told her mildly, expecting her to come up with another excuse about practicing going where she shouldn’t.  

 

“Actually, I’m right where I’m supposed to be.  I went downstairs in all the commotion and made sure my mom could see me.  She told me to leave, and I asked if I could hang out with you.  She just wanted me gone so she said yes.  So here I am,” she finished smugly.

 

“Did you hear anything while you were down there?”

 

“Crazy stuff,” she said.  “Puoordmet wanted to talk to Shepard, but all it really wanted to do was spout its fundamentalists beliefs at her and call her a heretic for saying that the Collectors were mutated Protheans.  Said the Collectors were targeting humans because they were a blight on the galaxy that would spread and corrupt all the other races.  It’s really pissed that the hanar don’t have a Council seat yet, but the humans do.”  
  
“Yeah, that’s about what I heard from Ruilo.  What did it say about the drell?”

 

“What? I didn’t hear anything about us.  Must have been after I left.  Can you make out what they’re saying?”

  
Kolyat joined her at the railing.  “A bit.  Looks like most of them are taking the Oligetti and Puoordmet to task about being impolite?”

 

“I wonder if this will be enough to finally kick Puoordmet out of the Citadel.  I know mom hates working with it.  Says it’s the most hidebound hanar she’s ever had the displeasure of working with, but it’s got a lot of political connections back on Kahje.  Even this won’t be enough to make it lose its Circle seat.  Still, its base is shrinking.  Did you know there’s actually talk of dissolving the Oligetti and having the Circle composed only of elected Arpetti?”

 

Kolyat blinked both sets of lids in surprise.  “But the Oligetti have held those hereditary seats for two thousand years.  The Arpetti only came into being five hundred years ago, after a lot of pressure from the galaxy and the Council.  I thought setting up the Arpetti was one of the conditions the Council set to get a seat for the hanar.”

 

“It was,” Hama confirmed.  “A lot of those old blood families are still pissed about having to give up some of their power to the electorate.  And the First Singer has been elected from the Arpetti for the past five terms.  Really, Kolyat, didn’t you pay the slightest bit of attention to the news on Kahje?”

 

Kolyat scowled and looked away.  He didn’t want to tell her that he’d spent most of his time trying to track down his father or working to save up money to get off Kahje.  It held too many painful memories for him, and he couldn’t wait to get away from the place.  When the box with his father’s mementos and a meagre credit balance had been mistakenly sent to him, he took it as a sign from the gods and lifted from Kahje three days later.

 

“Look, Shepard’s leaving with your dad,” Hama pointed out.  “Where’s the First Singer?  Oh, there he is. Wow, he’s actually wrapping tentacles with Puoordmet to get him to back down.  No one else could get away with that.  This is going to be good.”

 

Even Kolyat knew that the hanar didn’t like to touch in public.  He watched as an outraged Puoordmet disentangled itself from the First Singer and flash-spoke so quickly that Kolyat had trouble following.  “Is it actually threatening the First Singer?” he asked Hama, astonished.

  
“Yeah, it is.  Kolyat, look at the rest of the Oligetti.  They’re flashing the same message.”

 

“They’re outnumbered.”

 

“They don’t seem to care.  It’s saying they’ve strayed too far from the teachings of the Enkindlers.  Oh, now it’s back to the standard party line that we need to go back to the original teachings and live our lives according to the old standards.”

 

“That whole message was proven to be a misinterpretation years ago,” Kolyat replied.  He did remember that whole fiasco, because for a while there was talk of shutting down a lot of the entertainment that young teens of both drell and hanar enjoyed.  Fortunately, in Kolyat’s opinion, that movement had been short lived and died an early death.

 

“Some hanar don’t care.  The message fits with what they want to believe, and coincidentally reinforces their power base by giving more hereditary seats to the Oligetti.”

 

Kolyat hrmmphed at the bitter subvocals in her words.  “And I thought I was supposed to be the cynical one.”

 

“Oh you are.  I just hide it better than you do,” she noted.

 

“So what do you think’s going to happen?” he wondered as they watched the hanar slowly settle down.  Puoordmet and its companions swept haughtily out of the room, still flashing indignant yellows and oranges.

 

“I think things are going to change.  Fast.  It feels like everyone’s on edge, and not just from what Shepard’s doing.  The two political factions on Kahje haven’t been this antagonistic toward each other since the drell settled there.  Something’s gotta give.  I just hope it doesn’t happen at the same time Shepard’s Reapers show up.”

 

Kolyat snorted again.  “Really.  And just how likely do you think that will be?”

 

Hama shook her head sadly.  “I’m as cynical as you, Kolyat.  I think whatever’s going to happen is going to be bad and happen at the worst possible time.  And that’s why I keep practicing breaking locks and hiding in the shadows.  I want to be able to get away when the tsunami strikes the shore.”

 

Kolyat thought about that for a moment as he watched the embassy staff start to disperse.  Milar turned toward the stairs that led to the offices he was guarding.  “I’m not running,” he said suddenly, surprising himself as much as Hama.  “I’m not running and I’m not going to hide in the shadows.  I won’t be my father.  If someone’s in trouble, I’m going to help them.”  Everything crystallized for him in that moment.  His father’s life had been characterized by hiding in the shadows and killing on contract.  All of his hate for his father’s disappearance and his mother’s death had been subconsciously channeled to the Compact and the hanar that ran it.  In that moment, he swore to himself that he would never pledge to the Compact, no matter what they offered him.  Instead, he’d use them, learn from them.  He would continue his security training, learning all he could about tracking down criminals and protecting those who needed it.  He never wanted to see another child lose their families the way he and Hama had.  Her parents might still be alive, but her family had been as destroyed as his own, with parents owing more to the hanar than to their own children.  No more.

 

He felt warmth on his arm and looked down to see Hama’s hand resting on his arm.  The orange contrasted beautifully with the dark blue embassy security uniform.  “I believe you, Kolyat.”  

 

The sound of feet crushing the heavy pile carpet behind them made Kolyat look back.  Milar stood there watching them, and he was suddenly acutely conscious of Hama’s hand on his arm.  She didn’t say anything to either of them.  She simply turned and went into her office.  “Do you think...?” he started to ask Hama.    
  
“Leave it.  I’m sure she’ll talk to me later.”

 

“Do you want me to walk you home?”

 

“No, it’s still early.  I’d rather just stay here with you, if you don’t mind.”

 

The unaccustomed warmth spreading through Kolyat made him scowl and look away.  She was too young and more importantly, far too annoying for him to start feeling anything more than friendship with her, but he was vaguely aware that it was happening anyway.  “I’m just guarding the door.  Stay if you like.”

 

“Thanks, Kolyat.  You know, you’re kinda cute when you frown like that.”

 

His scowl deepened, but he didn’t pull away.  She was definitely annoying.  And cute.  Not that he had any intention of telling her that.  

 

* * *

 

A/N:  I don’t much care for writing political thrillers.  And the hanar are worse than anyone else!  No first person and exceedingly polite?  Argh.  In my plot outline, this chapter and the previous one took about two paragraphs.  In writing, they consumed months.  Comments and reviews gladly welcomed.  A little more talk, then back to the action.

 


	15. Prelude and Coda to a Dinner Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the embassy party, Shepard and Thane are invited to a private dinner with Milar, the top drell political official on the Citadel.

Kolyat yawned.  After last night’s fiasco at the embassy party, he hadn’t been released until well into the morning shift.  He’d stumbled back to the micro studio apartment that was all he could afford and fallen into bed.  Waking several hours later, he scratched absently at his chest, then sniffed and wrinkled his nose.  He was still wearing his uniform under garments from last night.  Since he didn’t have a roommate, he was forced to admit that the rank smell came from him alone.  He stripped and threw his old clothes into the laundry chute and stepped into the fresher unit.  He brewed some _dru fir_ to help him wake up while he went through his messages.  

  


A message from Milar was blinking at the top of the priority list.  She had invited him to come to dinner at her apartment tonight, a small affair with Shepard and his father.  He saw with some surprise that his schedule had been changed and he was supposed to report to Milar’s apartment tonight.  Even better, it was counted as official duty and he was getting paid for it.  He couldn’t decide if Milar was being generous or if this was her way of making sure he didn’t skip out on a meeting with his father.  He frowned at the thought.  He was writing to his father and had made the effort to meet him every time the Normandy docked at the Citadel.  It wasn’t like he was purposefully ignoring his father.  He just didn’t want to be pushed into more interactions than he was comfortable with.  

  


He pulled food that he had scavenged from the party last night out of the cooler.  He was getting tired of being low drell in the pecking order, especially since he knew the other security guards were making substantially more than he was.  Of course, the fact that they were all selected from the elite police forces on Kahje might have something to do with it, but he was feeling sullen this morning.  They knew he couldn’t afford to get mixed up with any merc groups right now, but the money to be made was very tempting when he was eating purloined party leftovers in a cheap micro apartment.  Then again, what did he want to buy?  He spent most of his time training or studying.  He had no desire to clutter up his space with useless doo dads and tacky artwork, and there were lots of restaurants that provided good food for a low price.  By now, he had scouted out the best in Zakara ward.  The only thing he really wanted was a better apartment, one with a window that looked out over the Citadel.  That, and a sense of freedom.

  


There were still several hours until he had to report to Milar’s place this evening.  After last night, he had decided he seriously needed to learn everything he could about hanar and drell politics.  He couldn’t afford to be so ignorant of his surroundings anymore.  He loaded up his data pad and settled down to read.

 

* * *

 

In her cabin on the Normandy, Shepard was getting a similar update from Thane and Kasumi, although they thoughtfully condensed hers into the cliffs notes version.  

  
“So what?” she asked.  “It was just a bunch of overly religious hanar.  That one was pretty rude from what I’ve seen, but it didn’t even begin to compare with the turian councilor.”

  


“No, Shep,” Kasumi said.  “That’s what you don’t get.  It’s a cardinal sin for a hanar to be rude to anyone.  For a member of the ambassadorial staff to insult an honored guest the way it did is unthinkable.  It points to a mental instability as far as the other hanar are concerned.  Then for it to go on and insult the drell and Thane in particular is another unforgivable sin.  They may talk like that in private, but they never say that in public.  Think of it as a more extreme version of feudal Japan with its formal manners.  It was so extreme that the only solution to a dishonorable act was to commit suicide.  I bet that hanar will be dismissed within a week.”

  


“Okay, so it goes home.  What then?  It’s not going to commit suicide.  It’ll go back to Kahje and keep agitating against us.  But it’s a minority member, so do you think it can influence the others to keep them from helping us and researching the Prothean ruins?  It was dead set against letting aliens, especially me, the heretic, setting one foot inside those ruins.”

  


Thane answered.  “It can certainly cause delays in letting anyone in to do specific research.  The Oligetti came to power millennia ago because their families controlled access to the ruins and learned how to manipulate the tech they found there.  They still hold considerable power over a large segment of hanar society, especially that related to the ruins.  The majority of the hanar favor the Arpetti, the larger elected segment of the Circle, but hanar society is slow to change.”

  


“You’d think they be more open to change, if they live in an aquatic environment.  I thought that would translate to more open and fluid thought processes, too.”

  


“You would be mistaken, Shepard,” Thane said.  “Even after the hanar became capable of interstellar flight and discovered alien societies, they were slow to accept other customs.  Hanar who interact with aliens have to take special training so they won’t be insulted by alien customs and speech patterns.  The First Singer was elected partly because it’s so capable of talking with the other major species on a personal basis.  I’ve told you that the hanar desperately want a Council seat, and that drives a majority of their politics.  It’s only the minority who see these changes as bad for hanar society and want to keep everything the way it was. But when people are forced into a society they deem immoral, they will take ever more extreme actions to drag the society back to where they want it to be.  Don’t think that just because the hanar are polite that they aren’t plotting to destroy you if you get in their way.”

  


Kasumi nodded her agreement.  “It’s only the fact that their economy is significantly smaller than most of the other races that they don’t have more power in galactic politics.  That and the fact that you’re not the only one who finds them difficult to interact with.  Being an aquatic race means they have an entirely different mindset than most of the other races in the galaxy.  But I think that there’s enough public sentiment on Kahje to pull the entire hanar race forward.  If you could arrange a Council seat for them in exchange for their unmitigated support against the Reapers, I think they’d agree.

  


Shepard rolled her eyes.  “Yeah, like I’m going to be able to arrange that.  Did you forget that half the Councilors hate me?  I can’t even get Udina to admit that Sovereign was a Reaper instead of a geth ship.  He’s not going to support me in a war he doesn’t believe is coming.”  She sighed and buried her face in her hands.  “What about the drell?”

  


Thane leaned back in his seat.  “We are too few to significantly impact hanar politics, let alone galactic politics.  There are less than a million of us.  There are not enough to form any sort of significant military unit, although with the hanar support, we could commit those who are in the Compact.  They are skilled saboteurs, assassins and spies.  In the right place, they can do a significant amount of damage.”

  


“Okay, so that’s one aspect we can negotiate for, although access to the ruins is the most important thing.  I’ll message Liara and see if she knows anything about the Kahje ruins.  I’m sure she’d love the chance to get in there.  What about our dinner tonight with Milar.  I’m assuming it’s more than just a social gathering.”

  


“Of course, Shep.  I mean, it’s nice to let Thane have a chance to have dinner with his son, but I’m sure they’d rather speak in private.”

  


“Then what?” the Commander asked in exasperation.

  
“Best case scenario is she wants to help and is meeting to offer it through unofficial channels. Worst case...she wants something big from you for her help.  I think you can pretty safely assume she wants to offer you some sort of deal.  I mean, she snapped Kolyat up out of C-sec.  You know she has some sort of plan for him.”

  


Thane looked upset at Kasumi’s comments.  “I will not allow him to enter the Compact.  He’s too old, for one thing.  Besides, it would go against Irikah’s wishes.”

  


Kasumi leaned forward and put her hand on Thane’s arm.  “Thane, your son is an adult now.  You may not have much say in what he does or doesn’t do.”

  


Thane abruptly stood up and paced over to the fish tank.  Kasumi jerked her head toward him to tell Shepard to go to him.  After a moment, she did so.  “You know Milar from long ago.  What do you think she has in mind for Kolyat?”

  


Thane sighed.  “Truly, I do not know.  She was always devious, and it has been many years since I spoke with her.  I do not know where her true loyalties lie.  I thought Kolyat would be protected in C-sec.  There he would just be another officer, one of many, subject to no more than the normal dangers of his job.  Now he has been thrown into the murky depths of politics, which can be deadlier than any police job.  I do not even know my own son well enough to know if he can navigate his way safely.”

  


Shepard stood close by his side, speaking quietly.  “We helped him before, Thane.  I’ll do whatever I can to make sure he’s safe in the embassy, as well.”

  


“I know, siha.  You have my thanks once again.”

 

* * *

 

“Do you like him?”

  
“What?”   
  
“Are you getting serious about young Sere Krios?”

  


“Mom!  Don’t you think that’s a little personal?”

  


“It is.  I’m still asking.  Are you serious about Kolyat?”

  


There was a solemnity in her mother that was unusual.  Hama fidgeted for a moment.  “We’re just friends.  He broods a lot, and I like making him forget about it.”

  


“Forget about what?”

  


“Whatever it is he keeps dwelling on.”

  


Her mother’s voice was thick with disapproval.  “Hama, you know what bothers him.”  She sighed and sank down in a plush chair.  “Come here, child.  Talk to me.”

  


“Mom, I’m not a child anymore.”

  


“For a little while longer.  Anyway, you’ll always be my child, Hama.  You’ll understand when you have children.  Humor your mother and talk with me for a bit.  I need your opinion.”

  


That was unusual enough that Hama came and sat next to her mother.  “What is it?”

  


Milar paused for a moment.  “I want to know your honest opinion of Kolyat Krios.  What sort of drell is he?”

  


Hama sank back into her chair to think.  “Well, he’s surly most of the time, and he treats me like a child.  But underneath all that, he’s nice.  He was very kind to the drala’fa when we went to help them.”  She paused to consider how she wanted to phrase her next words.  “I think he wants to help people.  To protect them.  He hated the corruption in C-sec.  Said it made him sick to see people take money for overlooking crime and cruelty.”

  


“But did he ever do anything about it?” Milar wanted to know.

  


Hama frowned and shook her head.  “I don’t think so.  I think he was scared of getting kicked out of C-sec and having nowhere to go.  I don’t know why, though.  He could have gotten a dozen different jobs on the Citadel or gone back to Kahje.”

  


“Do you think he’d ever take bribes?”

  


Hama shook her head instantly.  “No.  Although he gripes constantly about how poor he is.”

  


“Wouldn’t that be an inducement to take bribes eventually?”

  


Again she shook her head.  “I don’t think so.  I think he’d leave and sign up with a private contractor instead.”

  


“Or a merc group?”

  


“Mom, what are you getting at?”

  
“I’m trying to decide if our youngest security officer is worth the risk of trusting, Hama.  Would you trust him with your life?”

  


Hama thought about it.  “Yes, I think I would.”

  


“Would you trust him with mine?”

  


“What?  Why, mom?  Is something going on?”

  


“I just want to know how well you know him, sweeting.”

  


“I think so.  I mean, why wouldn’t he?  He’s in the security force here, and he basically works for you.”

  


Milar smiled sadly.  “Employment means little, unfortunately.  Loyalty is much harder to determine.  If he had to choose between me or his father, which do you think he’d choose?”

  


Hama opened her mouth then shut it again.  She racked her brain for everything she and Kolyat had talked about.  He talked a lot about how much he had hated his father, but lately, he’d indicated that he might understand his father’s motives, although he was having trouble forgiving him.  “I...I don’t know, mom.”

  


“Ah, well, thank you for your honesty, sweeting.  Don’t worry.  I won’t base my decision solely on the recommendation of my about-to-turn-eighteen daughter.  Speaking of which, you have yet to tell me what you want to do.  Do you want to return to Kahje?  You have plenty of extended family there.  I can set you up with a place to live and you can go to advanced schooling if you like.  Or you can stay here.  I can even hire you to work here if you like.”

  


Hama shrugged uncomfortably.  “I don’t know, mom.  It’s not like I really have much to look forward to on Kahje.”

  


“There would be more of our kind there, Hama.  I know it’s been a lonely life for you here, with so few drell around.  But I’m so glad you stayed here.  It’s selfish of me, but I’ve loved having you here with me.  But if you wanted a chance to meet young drell, you’d have a much better opportunity back on Kahje.”

  


Ah, there it was.  Hama almost smiled.  “Mom, you don’t have to marry me off right at eighteen.”

  


“I’m not trying to marry you off, child, although I expect grandchildren before too many more years go by.  I just want to make sure you have the opportunities you desire.  You’re smart and motivated, Hama.  I don’t want you to waste your life picking locks and shoplifting.  You can do so much more than that.”

  


“Mom!” she squeaked out in a strangled voice.  “I don’t do that anymore.  I promised I wouldn’t.”

  


Milar gave her a look, one that said she wasn’t fooled.  “The shoplifting maybe.  Tell me honestly, Hama, did you have nothing to do with the unexplained security breach of my office last night?”

  


Hama looked at her mother and shook her head.  “No, mom, I didn’t.”  She had worked very hard to control the subvocals that gave away lying among the drell and was confident she could fool her mother.

  


Milar sighed.  “Sweeting, what am I to do with you?  Your technical skills are quite good, but your vocals catch you out every time.”

  


Hama’s heart just about stopped.  All those times she’d thought she’d gotten away with lying to her mother were apparently just a ruse, but why?  “Mom...”

  


Milar held out her hand.  “Stop, Hama.  Answer me honestly this time.  What were you looking for in my office?”

  


Hama’s shoulders drooped.  “I wanted to find out about Thane Krios.”

  


“And did you?”  Milar’s voice was unemotional, giving away nothing.

  


“Not enough,” Hama admitted.

  
“Good,” Milar replied briskly.  “You don’t need to know everything that happened.  It was a very bad period, Hama.  Lots of people died.  There are still hard feelings in certain places.”

  


“But doesn’t Kolyat deserve to know what happened?  It’s his father.”

  


Milar frowned hard at her daughter.  “If Thane wants Kolyat to know, he’ll tell him.  The story will not come from you.  You have no business spilling secrets that are not your own, and certainly not of Thane.  The man has been through more agony and heartbreak than you will ever know.  I will not have my own daughter adding to it.  Leave them to work it out themselves.  Do you understand me, Hama?”

  


The younger drell stared at the floor.  “Yes, mama.”

  


“Do you swear by Arashu?” her mother continued.

  


Hama sighed.  “Yes, mama, I swear.”  And she meant it in her heart.  She would still try to find out, but she wouldn’t steal secrets, at least not about Thane Krios.  Although, if she taught Kolyat to do it, that wouldn’t count, she told herself.

  


“I just want you safe, sweeting.”  Milar hesitated before she spoke again.  “I think it’s time I started teaching you myself.  I can see you won’t give up your illicit activities, so I need to teach you to accomplish them effectively.”

  


Hama gaped at her mother.  “What?”  

  


“A safe, comfortable career in medicine or law isn’t for you, is it Hama?” Milar said sadly.  “If you won’t go to Kahje, I need to teach you how to be safe on the Citadel.  You’ll work with me each evening when I’m home to learn vocal control and recognition.  I’ll arrange for Berdu to help you with your electronics.  You are not to speak of this to anyone other than myself and Berdu.  Most especially not Kolyat.  Do you understand?”

  


This time, Hama had no problem agreeing.

 

* * *

 

Dinner had been only slightly less difficult than the embassy party the night before.  While Milar had thoughtfully provided food that was recognizably edible for humans, the undercurrents of tension between everyone made conversation stilted.  Shepard was waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop from Milar in the form of some favor.  The conversation between Thane and Kolyat was so painfully polite and terse that she had to stop herself from wincing every time they tried to speak to each other.  So far, most of their conversation had revolved around Kolyat’s security training, but it was obvious that Thane was not happy with Kolyat’s new position.  Milar’s daughter, Hama, was the only one unaffected, and Shepard gave thanks for the young drell’s chattiness throughout the meal.  

  


The young woman wanted to know all about Shepard’s mission and the people she had recruited.  Shepard answered happily, although she censored quite a bit of the more sensitive topics, well aware that Milar was taking in everything she was, and wasn’t, saying.  Right now, she was describing Jack’s numerous tattoos, and they were talking about why some humans felt the need to decorate their unmarked skin.  

  


“Are those tattoos?” Hama asked gesturing to the visible white lines on the human’s forearms.

  


Shepard self-consciously rubbed her hand over her arm.  “No,” she admitted.  “Tattoos are black or colorful.  These are scars from an accident a couple of years ago.”  

  


“It must have been a terribly bad one,” Hama said.

  


“Why do you say that?”  Shepard wondered if the young drell believed the stories that she’d been dead or that she’d been undercover for the Alliance or some terrorist organization.  Kasumi and Kelly kept her updated with the latest rumors about her floating through the galactic social medium.

  


“Because you still have the scars.  If it was a couple of years ago, they should have faded by now, unless it was a really bad accident.”

  


“Don’t drell scar?”

  


Hama shook her head.  “They disappear as the scales replace themselves.  It’s not unless the damage is widespread or takes out a big section of skin that a scar will last for years.”

  


“That would be nice.  No, humans tend to carry their scars around with them forever.  They might fade a bit, but that’s all.”

  


“Well, I think they’re very pretty.  It makes you stand out from the rest of the humans on the Citadel.”

  
Shepard smiled awkwardly.  “Thanks.  Maybe I should hang around the drell more often.  Would be good for my self-esteem.”  


“What was Tuchanka like?”  Hama’s questions tended to jump around like pyjaks.

  


Shepard thought back to her visit there, seeing Wrex dragging the various clans out of ruin and despair by his sheer strength of personality, the fight against the thresher maw, the unforgiving sunlight and lack of vegetation, and everywhere the ruins of a powerful civilization.  “Sad.  But hopeful,” she amended, thinking again of Wrex.  “So many of them think they have nothing left to live for except the glory of battle.  That’s no way to live a life.”  Unexpectedly, she realized that’s how her own life was feeling, going from battle to battle, preparing for a suicide mission, no prospects of a future where she could settle down, maybe have children.  She was suddenly identifying far too vividly with the krogan, and that was an unsettling thought.  To change her train of thought, she asked the first thing that came to mind.  “Tell me about Kahje.”

  


Hama shrugged her shoulders.  “I haven’t been there in over ten years.  Ask Kolyat.”

  


The blue drell in question scowled when all eyes turned to him.  “What?  I’m sure my father has told you all about it.  It rains a lot.  What else is there to say?”

  


“I don’t know,” Shepard told him.  “I’ve heard drell live in domes.  What are they like?  Big?  Small?  Are there any windows in them?”

  


Kolyat toyed with the bit of food left on his plate.  “They’re transparent.  Doesn’t matter though.  All you ever see is rain running down the outside of the dome.”

  


Milar smoothly took over the description.  “The domes are quite large, encompassing entire neighborhoods.  Some of the larger ones are very tall, allowing space for multiple story buildings as well as several parks and green spaces.  With the constant rain and humidity on Kahje, it’s not safe for drell to spend long amounts of time outside unless they’re wearing a protective breather.  There are also several agricultural domes devoted to polycultured crops and animals.”

  


“Don’t the hanar get upset about losing so much land space?”

  


“No, they were barely using ten percent of the available land space before we came there, and that was mainly for the spaceport and visitors’ facilities.  This really is an example of two species cohabitating symbiotically and peacefully.”

  


“And what about Rakhana?  Is it habitable at all?”

  


Milar answered her question, although there was a noticeable sadness in her voice.  “Barely, and only along the coast.  The population on Rakhana is less than ten thousand full time residents, although most drell on Kahje have visited there at least once in their lives for pilgrimage.  There’s one large city remaining, Kail Ma’at.  It houses the main spaceport on the coast where the people eke out a living from the small amount of fish that remain in the ocean along with some subsistence farming.”

  


“Why don’t they leave?  Go back to Kahje with the rest of you?”

  


“Habit.  Pride.  Religion.  The majority of those left believe strongly in the old gods and think that they are being punished for abusing Arashu’s blessings, that Kalahira is taking vengeance for the insult done to her sister.  Others fear going to a place where water falls from the skies in an unending torrent.  Many other are simply ignorant of their options, devolving back into tribes who wander the coastline and are fiercely wary of strangers.”

  


“It sounds so sad.  I’ve heard that Earth was headed for the same fate if we hadn’t discovered the mass effect relays when we did.”

  


“Humans are fortunate, then.  I would not wish the drell’s fate on anyone,” Milar told her.  “There is hope, though.  The hanar have funded some terraforming studies, and we think we can make Rakhana habitable again within five hundred years.  The Ambassador here is one of the major backers of the current study.”

  


Shepard shook her head.  “So long.”

  


“Not really, Commander.  When you consider other long term projects undertaken by numerous species across the galaxy and compared to the natural timeframe for a planetary ecology to restore itself, it’s a mere eye blink.  We will do whatever it takes to reclaim our home world.”

  


Milar stood and gestured toward the next room.  “Would you like to join me, Commander?  I believe we have some mutual business we could discuss.  Hama, you need to finish your schoolwork.”  She turned and headed into the spacious seating area.  Shepard trailed behind, glancing back once at Thane.  He and Kolyat remained at the table and showed no indication of leaving.  She wondered if Kolyat was playing some other part in Milar’s plan.

  


Milar’s living space was decorated in soothing teals and blues, with the furniture a creamy ivory.  Paintings of what Shepard assumed were Kahje adorned the walls.  As a high ranking embassy member, she rated a fantastic view of the length of the Citadel, and Shepard paused to look out the window at the five arms stretching down into the distance.  Diffuse light from the Serpent Nebula illuminated the arms, and she was struck suddenly by the sheer number of individuals who lived in the Citadel, a tiny fraction of the billions of souls spread across the known galaxy.  And every one of them was in imminent risk from the Reapers.  But before she could do anything about them, she had to face the Collectors.  One thing at a time, she told herself.  She turned back and found a comfortable chair.

  


“Commander,” Milar began, “Thane’s actions last night had the effect he was hoping for.  All of Kahje has been in an uproar all day, and people who would have no reason to ever know your name are now demanding to know everything possible about you and your mission.”  She frowned as she continued.  “Unfortunately, sentiment is not all on your side.  As you know, the Enkindlers are the primary religious belief among the hanar, and among a sizeable number of drell.  Your report of the Protheans becoming the slaves of the Reapers and committing these attacks against human colonies could not remain secret for long, and is causing considerable strife on Kahje.  The idea that their uplifters could have fallen so low as to become deformed slaves of a stronger race flies in the face of every hanar belief.  Even the more enlightened hanar who accept that the Protheans were nothing more than an early advanced race still hold idolized feelings toward them that are hard to overcome.”  She sighed.  “I wish Thane had forewarned me of his intentions, but he was always an intensely private man.  But it might have been easier if we could have leaked some of this information in advance.”

  


“Well, we didn’t.  So what do you want from me now?” Shepard asked her.

  


“So refreshingly direct.”  Milar stared at the human with Thane’s typical calm, only a hint of orange deep in her black eyes.  Two could play at this game, and Shepard had had lots of practice with Thane.  Shepard waited her out.  

  
“When you come back from the Collectors’ home world, we want access to all of your data.

  
“Is that all?”  Shepard was surprised that the cost was so little.

  


“Not quite.”  Ah, here we go, Shepard thought as Milar continued.  “We want you to be our spokesman, but we want to control the message.”

  


“Who’s we?” she wanted to know first.

  


“The First Singer, the Ambassador, and the progressive elements of the government.  We want to shape the message that Kahje hears.  It’s crucial if we want to maintain a solid grip on the government’s power, and if you are correct about the Reapers, and we believe you are, it’s vitally important that Kahje not be splintered into warring factions just now.”

  


“What’s in it for me?”

  


“Unfettered access for you and your people to the Kahje Prothean ruins, along with assistance from our best researchers.”

  


Shepard sat back to think for a moment.  It was exactly what she’d been hoping for from the hanar, and the price seemed much more reasonable than the Council seat she’d been afraid they would ask for.  Still, it was grating enough being pulled around by the Illusive Man’s puppet strings.  She didn’t fancy being another sort of puppet for the hanar.  “What if I don’t like the message you want me to say?”

  


“Then politically we will not be able to provide you the sort of open support...and access to the ruins, that we could otherwise,” Milar told her calmly.

  


“That’s a dangerous move,” Shepard told her.  “We need every bit of data we can gather if we, as a coherent civilization in the galaxy, stand any chance at all.”

  
“I do not believe we would ask you to say anything you would disagree with, Commander.  We want to show the hanar and drell that the Protheans were merely the ones who came before.  They were special in that they uplifted the hanar, and apparently several others species in the galaxy before they disappeared, but we must move carefully, or we risk losing the fundamentalists and the hard line factions, and with them, a sizeable portion of the more moderate population.  Commander,” she continued quietly, “what I tell you now is sensitive, and I would appreciate it if you did not spread it beyond this room, but Kahje stands on a fulcrum point.  The hardliners and old families are moving to consolidate political power in a way that they haven’t in centuries, and with the recent changes, they are getting more powerful as people become scared of what might happen.  We must move carefully if we are to navigate these shoals.  You and Thane are powerful symbols that can be used by either side.  We want you on ours.”

  


Shepard chewed on her lip, wondering how much of this Thane was privy to.  He and Kasumi hadn’t mentioned that Kahje was this unstable when they were talking earlier today.  “Okay,” she finally said.  “I see where you’re coming from, and I agree.  I want the support of the hanar as well as access to those archives.  But I want some more tangible support, too.  I want the hanar to commit the drell in the Compact to active support against the Reapers.”  She could swear she saw Milar flinch for just a second, but it was gone and replaced with her normal calm expression so quickly that she wasn’t sure she had actually seen anything.

  


“You don’t know what you’re asking, Commander.  I’m sure Thane has told you more about the Compact than we normally let outsiders know, but you must know that we are too few to have any effect.  Taken together, our entire combat force is less than two turian platoons.  We cannot afford to sustain major losses like that.”

  


“Milar, listen to me.”  Shepard leaned forward trying to communicate her urgency.  “If we don’t succeed against the Reapers, everyone will perish, drell, turians, humans...everyone.  Even if we figure out how to fight them and defeat them, we’re looking at likely losses in the billions of souls.  The Collectors took thousands of humans from our colonies with almost no effort, and we still don’t know why.  When I talked to Sovereign, it was insistent that it would extinguish all intelligent life in the galaxy.  All of us.  Believe me, I don’t intend to use your people as shock troops.  That would be an utter waste.  But as highly trained infiltration units, they would be invaluable, and we’re going to need every resource we can get.”

  


Milar shook her head.  “Commander...both the hanar and drell are, for the most part, very peaceful races.  What you ask...”

  


“What I ask, Milar, is that everyone work together to save us all.  Look, it’s not going to rest solely on you.  To be frank, it can’t.  You’re right.  Your military is too small, but there are other resources you can offer.  When I get back,” and Shepard steadfastly refused to doubt they would, “I promise you’ll have all the intel we’ve gathered.  But I’m going to share it with all the races.  Everyone needs to know what we’re up against, and I’ll be honest with you.  If I can get the hanar to come out publicly in support of me, it would go a long way in swaying the other races, particularly with their history of worshipping the Protheans.  If the turians and salarians see the hanar preparing for war, they’ll see how important it is to them.  And right now, I need every bit of support I can get.  You help me, and I’ll help you.”

  


Milar sat back and closed her eyes for a long moment.  Shepard let her think.  Finally she sighed and focused her deep black eyes on Shepard.  “I have no small amount of influence back on Kahje.  I will start talking to people, preparing them for what is to come and convincing them we need to support you.  But you will have to bring me something solid, something incontrovertible before we can go completely public, Commander.”

  


“Believe me, Milar, that’s extremely high on my priority list.  We need every scrap of data we can get on the Reapers, and I’m hoping to find something when we go after the Collectors.”

  


The unofficial drell ambassador leaned forward and rubbed her temple.  “You ask much, Commander Shepard, but if things are truly as serious as you claim, we must do what we can to help.”

  


“I’ll be asking as much, and more, from the other races, Milar.  I’m thankful that you believe me.  More than you can imagine,” she said, remembering the turian Councilor’s brush off.

  


“Belief and proof are two very different things, Commander.  I hope you can deliver on the second.  And one more thing, Commander.  Please bring Thane back alive.  He’s become very important to us all.”  They both turned to look back at the dining room, although neither Thane nor Kolyat could be seen through the door.  

  


“I intend to bring all my crew members back, ma’am,” Shepard stated forcefully.  “They’re the best in the galaxy, and together, we’ll get the job done.  The Collectors won’t know what hit them.”

  
“I will pray to Amonkira that your hunt goes well, Shepard, and to Kalahira to keep you safe from her shores.”

  


Shepard stood and smiled at the orange drell.  “Thank you, Milar.  We can use every bit of luck and prayer we can get.  Now, do you think we should go rescue them from each other?” she asked, jerking her thumb toward the dining room.

  


“It’s been remarkably quiet.  Perhaps they have reached an accord,” Milar suggested.

  


“I hope so,” Shepard replied.  She hoped for Thane’s sake that Kolyat was growing up and would be able to get over the hurts of the past, but then, he was young, and his hurts were large.  She told herself it would probably take a long time, if ever, for him to forgive.  She paused and looked at the other woman.  “What is you want with Kolyat, Milar?”

  


Without pausing, she answered, “Someone loyal to my cause.”

  
“Which is?”

  


“The safety and preservation of the drell,” she stated matter of factly.  “You have your protector, Commander, but I need many more than just one, no matter how talented he is.  Although, I have a feeling that Kolyat will turn out to be just as talented as his father.”

  


“I hope you’re right, Milar.”

 

* * *

 

By unspoken consent, father and son stayed seated at the dinner table as the Commander and unofficial ambassador made their way into the next room.  Even after they had been gone for some time, neither seemed willing to broach the silence between them.  Thane noted with pride that his son carried himself with more confidence now.  As well, he had obviously been exercising hard, because his formerly lean frame now carried several more kilos of muscle than it had when they had first reunited.  He wondered, too, at the unspoken communication between his son and Milar’s daughter that he had witnessed during dinner.  Milar had been watching it, too, but she seemed unconcerned over it.  Well, there were few enough drell on the Citadel.  Thane was struck again how much of his son’s life he had missed when he realized that he knew nothing about his son’s dating life.  Unfortunately, he didn’t see any graceful way of bringing it up tonight.  He would try to stick to safer topics.  

  


“Do you enjoy working for the hanar embassy more than you did C-sec?” he asked.

  


Kolyat snorted.  “It’s not like I had much choice in the matter, but yes, it’s nicer to play security guard here than it was to deal with all the crap cases Bailey gave me in Zakera Ward.  I haven’t had to deal with vorcha at all, and that alone is worth everything else.”

  


“Do they treat you poorly, then?”  Thane hadn’t spoken with Milar since their days together in the Compact Training Hall, but he wouldn’t let her get away with mistreating his son.  

  


Kolyat stared down at his plate and puffed out his cheeks before blowing out his breath in a huff.  “No,” he admitted in a disgruntled voice.  “I’m low man on the totem pole, but considering I’ve only been working here for short while, I guess I can’t complain.  I’d have been pulling night shifts under Bailey, too.  Be nice if I could get a raise, though.”

  


Thane thought immediately of the large balance in his multiple bank accounts.  What Kolyat had gotten earlier had only been a fraction of his wealth, with the rest designated to be distributed to him in five more years.  Thane had corrected the original error that sent his son that disastrous box and sent him to the Citadel, but saw no point in changing the distribution.  He would be dead within five more years anyway.  Kolyat needn’t know the full extent of what he would inherit, but maybe he could give his son some of it now to help him out.  Maybe it would make up in some small way for not being there all those years.  “Kolyat, I have money.  I can give you...”

  
“No!”  Kolyat’s hand knifed through the air.  “I don’t want your money!  I don’t want anything...”  He stopped abruptly.  “I’ll do it on my own,” he muttered after a moment, refusing to meet his father’s gaze.

  


“As you desire,” Thane said calmly, even though his heart was breaking at this latest indication that his son was still angry at him.  

  


They sat in uncomfortable silence a little longer until Kolyat’s conscience got the better of him.  “Are you.. well?  I mean, the...you know.  It doesn’t bother you on whatever secret missions you’re doing?” he asked awkwardly.

  


“I am fine for now,” he reassured his son.  “The disease is progressing, but slowly, and Shepard has an excellent physician on the Normandy to help me manage it.”

  


There was another long, awkward pause until Kolyat asked the question Thane knew was coming.  “How long?”  He looked out the window instead of at Thane.

  


The older drell sighed.  “Twelve months, perhaps.  I have been fortunate so far.  The disease is progressing slower than expected, which has allowed me to continue fighting by Shepard’s side.”

  


“Do you have to keep doing that?  It sounds like she’s got a lot of people to help her out.  Maybe you could...stay here.  On the Citadel.”

  


The question tore Thane in two.  On one hand, he was elated at this sign that his son still did care for him, even if he was angry.  But he had sworn his allegiance to Shepard for the Omega 4 mission.  Suddenly he was afraid that Kolyat would make him choose, and even more so, he was afraid that he didn’t know which one he would choose.  He sought to head him off before he could ask.  “Kolyat, I have promised Shepard that I would be part of her team, that I would see this through to the end.  I cannot break my promise.”  Silently, he prayed to Arashu that Kolyat would not ask that of him.  

  


“But, I’ve heard...they say you’re going through the Omega 4 relay.”  Kolyat plucked at imaginary dirt on his pants.  “No one’s ever come back from there.”

  


“Shepard has made a career of doing the impossible.  She believes that we will return,” Thane told him.

  


“What do you believe?”

  


“I believe in Shepard,” Thane answered serenely.  

  


Startled, Kolyat finally looked his father in the eyes.  “Is she as impressive as I’ve heard?”

  


“You owe her your freedom, and I owe her my life.  And that is only a fraction of what she’s accomplished in the short time I’ve been with her.  So yes, whatever you have heard, I am confident that she is that impressive, as you say.”

  


Kolyat mulled that over for a short time.  “I wish you would stay, but I won’t ask you to break your vow.  It’s just that...I don’t want to lose you any sooner than I have to,” he finished quietly.

  


The similarity to the words spoken by his siha over this same topic nearly swept Thane into an outpouring of memories.  He held on by the skin of his teeth.  The last thing Kolyat needed right now was to hear him call Shepard ‘siha.’  “I am not pleased by the prospect, either, Kolyat, but I have long since ceased railing at the universe for being unfair.  Instead, I choose to be a part of something special in my last days, the saving of humanity.  It can never make up for all my sins, but I hope it can repay a small portion of the harm I have done.  But I promise you that I will be as present for you as you will allow me.  There is still much I would like to share with you about your mother, and it would please me to know that her memory lives on in you.”

  
“I would like that,” Kolyat admitted.  “Maybe tomorrow?”

  


Thane’s heart fell.  The Normandy was scheduled to lift off from the Citadel early tomorrow morning.  He had heard Miranda complaining about the docking fees to Shepard earlier today.  Apparently, even the Savior of the Citadel wasn’t immune to bureaucratic red tape.  “We leave tomorrow, but if you wish, I can stay longer tonight?  Although, perhaps someplace other than Sera Strychae’s apartment.”

  


“I could, um, you could come to my place,” Kolyat offered.

  


“I would be honored,” Thane replied gravely.  And he was.  All of their previous meetings had been in restaurants, over meals, and thus with a well-defined ending hanging over each one.  

  


Just then, Shepard and Milar came in.  “Time for me to get back to the Normandy, Thane.  You coming?”

  


“Not yet, Shepard.  I believe Kolyat and I will talk a while longer, but I would be happy to escort you to the Normandy.”  Thane’s Commander was terrible at hiding her emotions, and he was amused to see the shock and surprise flicker across her face.  

  


“Um...no.  That’s fine.  I can get there on my own, you know.”

  


“Yes, but Garrus would be upset with you wandering the Citadel on your own.”

  


“Pfft.  Garrus is a worrywart,” Shepard replied with a negligent wave of her fingers.  “We lift at oh six fifteen tomorrow morning.  Be on board an hour before.  Milar, thank you for the dinner and conversation.  It was most enlightening.  Thane, Kolyat, good evening.”  He could see her gaze linger on Kolyat as if she wanted to say something more to him, but instead, she stepped to the door.

  


Thane and Kolyat made their similar farewells and left.  Milar watched them go and felt hopeful.  Never in her life would she argue against the Compact, but she could also admit it caused hardships.  If one family might be mended, it gave her hope that more could be.

  


Turning to the sleeping quarters, she stopped in her daughter’s bedroom.  “Which conversation did you follow, Hama?”

  


“Both, mama,” her daughter replied smugly.  “Yours was much more interesting, though.”

  


Milar nodded and allowed herself to lean against the door jam.  “Shepard is a most interesting human.  If she survives this mission, I feel we will have a formidable ally on our side. Things are going to get very interesting, little tadpole,” she said, reverting to her nickname and ignoring Hama’s groan at its use.  “I have work to finish up tonight, so no lessons.  Practice what we went over earlier today.  We’ll talk again in the morning.”

 

* * *

 

0615

  


Kolyat frowned, but couldn’t help himself.  He dialed up the cameras at the docking ring and watched the sleek profile of the Normandy SR2 lift out of port.  His father had refused to tell him where they were headed, although he had been completely open about almost everything else Kolyat had asked.  He also had his father’s promise to write often, although Thane had extracted the same in return.

  


Kolyat struggled to reconcile Thane’s stories with the story he had built up for himself over what his father was.  They had talked long into the night, about Thane’s life growing up in the Guild of Shadow Walkers and his contracts, but mostly about his mother.  The unlikely story of how they met, so different from his mother’s version.  According to his mother, Thane was a _wairu naro_ , a lost soul seeking redemption.  There was never any question in her mind that it was her fate and duty to save him.  In turn, he had called her Arashu’s angel.  Looking back with an adult’s perspective, he saw now that she had never given up on him.  She had never told the younger Kolyat what his father did, but he could see that even though it hurt her that he still took contracts, she never lost her faith in him.  When he had told that to his father, he had been astonished and a bit embarrassed to see tears running down Thane’s face.

  


They had talked, too, about Thane’s adventures aboard the Normandy.  Kolyat particularly liked the story about the krogan adolescent’s rite of adulthood.  Hearing and seeing his father talk, Kolyat had picked up on how animated the older man was describing those adventures.  He had to admit that this mission had indeed given Thane more energy and purpose than he had when they had first met after his ill-conceived assassination attempt.  

  


It had been a long night, but the way his mind was humming, he didn’t think he’d get to sleep anytime soon.  He brewed up a strong cup of _dru fir_ and grabbed his data pad.  He wanted to research the stories of the alleged coup d’état back on Kahje and compare it to Thane’s version, which he had obviously edited heavily.  He never would have guessed a day ago that he would actually miss his father. Tides roll and all things change, he reminded himself as he took his first drink and settled down to read.

  



	16. Trepidations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard is nervous about her upcoming surgery and seeks a distraction.

“That’s it?” Shepard asked as she stared at the silvery contraption hanging over the last bed in the Med Bay.

 

“That’s it, Commander,” Dr. Chakwas confirmed.  “The parts were all available on the Citadel, and between myself, Miranda, and Dr. Solus, we’ve spent the better part of the last week assembling and testing it.  We can use it to finish integrating your Cerberus cybernetics with your nervous system whenever you’re ready.”

 

“How long will it take?” Shepard asked as she glanced uneasily at the machine.  Even though the entire ship was Cerberus construction, there was something eerie and menacing about the spidery device hovering over the bed.  Probably it was just the association of death and resurrection she had with Cerberus medical technology, she told herself.

 

Miranda answered.  “It’s hard to be certain, Shepard.  The actual procedure itself should take less than a day.  You’ll be unconscious the entire time as the device analyzes the cybernetics and makes adjustments.  Then there should be another day while your system recovers.  You should count on being out of action for at least three days.”

 

Shepard made a noncommittal mmmn sound as she walked around the bed.  “It’ll be five days before we reach Pragia.  This is as good a time as any, I suppose.  How certain are you that this will fix the problems I’ve been having?”

 

Miranda looked affronted that anyone would question her competence.  “Shepard, I designed this system and spent over two years refining it specifically to your DNA.  As I already told you, the problems you’re experiencing are because we had to wake you up early.  This is the last step in the Lazarus process.  It’s what I would have done to you anyway, and you would never have known the difference if things had gone according to plan.”

 

The Commander held up a hand to placate the Cerberus agent, even though she was irritated at Miranda’s unconsciously objectifying her back into a Cerberus lab project.  “Fine, fine.  Let me just wrap a couple things up, and I’ll be back.”   _Like my last will and testament.  Oh wait, I don’t own anything._

 

“Come back in the morning, Commander,” said Dr. Chakwas.  “You need to have an empty stomach and be well rested.”

 

Shepard growled unintelligibly as she stomped out of the Med Bay.  Great, on top of having to submit to yet another experimental Cerberus medical procedure, she was going to be starving for hours.  She hated missing a meal.  She retreated to her cabin and spent the afternoon catching up on paperwork and plotting out their course for the next few days, hoping to distract herself from thoughts of tomorrow’s operation.  Pragia was only a few days away, but there was a system that looked promising for platinum and eezo on the way.  She figured she’d stick Jacob with the job of scanning this time to spread the pain a little.

 

The Normandy upgrades were mostly complete now.  Her new specialists had brought a wealth of knowledge with them, and now her ship sported new shielding and cannons, and even new firepower for her crew.  There were a few loose ends that needed to be tied up with her crew before they were truly ready to go through the Omega four relay; Jack’s obsessive need to destroy the Cerberus facility on Pragia was one of them.  Kasumi and Zaeed had some unfinished business as well.  Shepard leaned back in her chair and sighed.  She fully expected to survive Miranda’s medical process, but the cynical pragmatist in her demanded that she go ahead and update her successor plan in case she didn’t.  The trouble was that there really wasn’t anyone who could take her place.  In spite of the fact that Miranda was technically her XO, she didn’t have the personality to earn the respect of her crew, especially the non-human members.  In terms of command, Garrus was close, but the loss of his team as Archangel made him hesitant now, even as it gave him an understanding about leadership.  It would take time for his mental scars to heal enough to become the natural commander she saw in him.  Jacob was a born soldier, a follower and he knew it and didn’t resent it.  Zaeed was the only one remaining with any leadership skills, but his style was so antithetical to her own that it would take weeks or months before the crew felt comfortable with him.  Anyway, she doubted that he and the Illusive Man would ever see eye to eye.  The rest of her crew were the crazies, the mad scientist and the loners.  No, she would just have to trust that Miranda knew what she was doing.  Reluctantly, she wrote down her plan, indicating that Garrus should take her place if anything should happen.  In spite of what happened to him on Omega, those same factors made him the only choice to lead the Normandy crew in her absence.

 

While she had been working, a priority message had come in from Admiral Hackett.  She immediately opened it, and immediately wished she hadn’t.  As she read his message, a chill settled in her gut.  They had found the crash site of the SR1 on Alchera and wanted her to go there.  Ostensibly, it sounded like a good idea.  Offer the SR1’s commander the opportunity to place a monument to the fallen and to collect their dog tags.  But it affected her so much more deeply than that.  Instinctively, she felt it was a chance to apologize to their spirits for not being able to save them, but at the same time, the thought of revisiting the site of the attack filled her with dread.

 

To work off her nervous energy, she spent the rest of the afternoon in a flurry of activity around the Normandy, visiting her specialists and friends.  Zaeed alone was worth an hour of amusing anecdotes.

 

During dinner, she stayed in her cabin to work on her latest ship model, a quarian liveship.  She let the dance music wash over her, letting random thoughts go through her mind as she patiently assembled the tiny replica.  Eventually, however, her thoughts turned macabre and she kept thinking about waking up in the Cerberus lab, and even before that to the big empty spot in her memory just after she was spaced from the Normandy SR1.  Over and over, she replayed the last few minutes on the doomed Normandy in her mind:  yelling at Kaidan to get to the escape pods, the torturously slow walk through an airless CIC with Alchera looming overhead, the abrupt snap of Joker’s arm in her hand as she hauled him out of the seat, the explosion and the immediate realization that she would never reach the escape pod, the hissing sound as her suit vented to open space, clutching at her throat as her air ran out...  She realized she had been staring into space for a long time, and the half-complete liveship was trembling in her fingers.   

 

With sudden haste, she pushed back her chair, dropped the model into the box with the remaining pieces and quickly stepped out to the elevator.  Her thoughts were in turmoil, and she instinctively wanted the calm that always seemed to surround Thane.  When she was around him, she felt like she could absorb the serenity that he possessed.

 

In the elevator, she struggled to control her breathing.  This wasn’t the first time she’d had a panic attack from remembering the destruction of the Normandy and her subsequent death.  The first time it had been late at night and she was alone in her cabin.  She had hyperventilated and screamed until she couldn’t breathe, which only scared her more.  EDI had summoned Dr. Chakwas to administer a sedative.  Shepard clung to the doctor, whimpering and begging her not to tell Miranda, fearful that the Cerberus agent would drag her back to the lab.  The next day, the doctor had counseled her on how to handle panic attacks, since she refused to talk to Kelly about them.  Since then, Chakwas had visited her cabin several times and prescribed sleeping pills, but Shepard was loathe to take them.   

 

Her thumb was on Thane’s door chime before it registered that she was hearing a musical laugh coming from Life Support.  She took a step backward and debated disappearing into the crew mess, but the door opened before she could act on it.  

 

Thane stood there in his customary leathers, and a rare smile graced his face.  “Shepard.  I was hoping you would stop by.  Come in.”  He stepped aside to permit her entrance.  Feeling suddenly trapped, she edged around him, clutching her model box tightly to her chest.  

 

“Um, am I interrupting?”

 

“Shep!” Kasumi called out.  “It is you.  Thane said you would stop by.  Come in, come in.”  

 

As Shepard came fully into Life Support, she saw Kasumi sitting cross-legged on Thane’s spartan bunk, holding a steaming cup of something fragrant.  Thane’s usual chair was pushed back so he could talk to her.  Shepard set her model box on the table and slowly took her usual seat.  

 

“I knew it,” Kasumi chuckled.  

 

“What?”

 

“I almost sat there, but Thane gave me a _look_ ,” the thief said with a grin under her hood.  “That’s the Commander’s seat.  He didn’t actually say it, but his body language did.”

 

Shepard shot Thane a look of her own.  He took his seat with a studied nonchalance that gave away nothing.

 

“So what were you two discussing?”  Shepard decided she could play the nonchalant game, too, as she started piecing together her model.

 

“You,” Thane rumbled.  

 

The Commander looked up, startled.  So much for appearing calm and disinterested.  “How so?”

 

Kasumi answered.  “We think you should take both of us with you on your next mission.  We’ll stay in the shadows, let you charge in all shiny and loud like you usually do, and poof!  It’ll look like you did the entire mission by yourself.  Think of the wonders it’ll do for your reputation!”  She lifted her mug to Shepard in a happy salute.

 

Despite herself, Shepard felt her lips pull up in a smile.  “It would, except for most of the time, there’s no one left standing at the end to impress, anyway.”

 

“Then we’ll just have to make sure and leave a lucky survivor or two,” Kasumi replied undaunted.  

 

“I’ll consider it,” Shepard allowed, then added, “it would be a pretty cool thing to pull off.”

 

“That’s so interesting,” Kasumi said as she slid off the bed and over to the table to peer at the liveship model.  “Thane told me about your model ships.  It’s so detailed.  How many have you done?” she asked as she poked at the loose parts in the box.  

  
“Um...seven so far,” Shepard answered.  “I’m starting to run out of room, though.”

 

“Nonsense,” Kasumi said.  “I’m sure Gardner wouldn’t mind if we put one in the galley or put one in Joker’s cockpit.  Plenty of options, Shep.  Just go for it.”  Shepard looked up, wondering if Kasumi was saying more than was in her words, but the tiny thief turned away.  “I should go,” she said.  “It’s time for Jacob to do his evening calisthenics. Wouldn’t want to miss that,” she said with a bounce in her step.  “Night, all.  I’ll let myself out, Thane.”  Kasumi disappeared in a shimmer of her tactical cloak.

 

Shepard let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.  “I love her, but she talks a mile a minute.”

 

Thane turned his chair back to the table to face her.  “Indeed.  She reminds me of one of the younger initiates in the Compact.  The instructors despaired of ever instilling the discipline of silence and stillness in her.”

 

“Did they succeed?”

 

“Eventually.  To a degree.  She turned out to have a surprising aptitude for inspiring trust and confidence, which in turn led to a successful career as a spy and diplomat.”

 

“Do the hanar train mainly assassins?”

  
“No.  There are relatively few assassins in all those committed to the Compact.  Most are security, some are diplomats.  Each of us is highly trained, however.”

 

Shepard smiled and tucked her hair back behind her ear as she rummaged through her box of parts.  “I never doubted that.  Is everyone as serious as you, though?”

 

Thane shook his head with a fond smile.  “No.  Milar was almost never serious.  She was always playing pranks and seeing how far she could push people.  She always knew when to stop, though, never pushing far enough to get into serious trouble.  I missed her when I moved on to a different area of study.”

 

“Strange to think that you knew Milar growing up, but I guess it makes sense if you were both trained by the Compact.  Did you have many other friends growing up?”

 

Thane’s smile slowly disappeared.  “No.  Casual friendships were discouraged.  Younger students were paired with an older one, and those relationships became like family, but the focus was always on learning and perfection.  The instructors discouraged...distractions.”

 

Shepard thought about a young Thane, bereft of family, dependent on someone already inculcated into the system as a new surrogate family, trying desperately to please instructors who would tear apart his performance mercilessly at the least imperfection.  She shuddered inwardly, thinking it was a miracle he ever managed to open up enough to find a wife.  

 

“You disapprove.”  Thane’s rumbling voice carried its own overture of disapproval.  They had had this discussion and its variants many times before.

 

“No.  Well, a little,” she amended.  “But I agree it’s your culture, and it’s what’s normal for drell.  I just can’t imagine myself in it.  Or letting my child go.”  She said the last quietly, not looking up at him.

 

Thane said nothing, but sat silently, sipping at his tea.  Shepard imagined his mother, sending her six year old child off to be raised as a killer for the hanar, doing so because it was an honor for the family and the child.  She knew that Thane hadn’t seen his parents again for twenty years, and only rarely since then, and that was only at the urging of his former wife.  Granted, she hadn’t seen her parents much since she entered the Academy, but she had spent her entire childhood with her parents.  The idea of losing a child so young and not seeing them again for so many years hurt something inside her.  “I couldn’t do it,” she stated softly.

 

Thane sighed and set his mug down.  “Neither could Irikah,” he said.  “The hanar came to us when Kolyat was five.  She refused.”

 

Shepard fought to keep her attention on her model.  “What did you think?” she asked, trying to keep her voice neutral.

 

“We argued.  At first.  I saw it as an honor, as most drell do.  The hanar also intimated that it would compensate for my early departure from the Compact.  Irikah had an older sister who was initiated into the Compact.  She said it left her mother haunted for the rest of her life, and she had no intention of following in her mother’s footsteps.  She was determined that we would be a family and nothing would disrupt that.  Unfortunately, events forced a different outcome.”  He paused for a long moment.   Shepard stayed quiet, hoping he would continue, and eventually, he did.  “I’m glad she refused.  I never missed my childhood.  I was filled with a sense of purpose, with a mission, and I pitied all those who lacked my focus.  It wasn’t until I saw Kolyat grow up that I realized childhood has a focus all its own.  In the end, I was glad that he had a chance to know his mother for those years, even if she was taken from us too soon.”

 

She just nodded, for once unsure what to say.  Her empty stomach picked that moment to gurgle loudly, much to her embarrassment.  

 

“Have you not eaten, siha?  I have been remiss in my duty as host.  Allow me to bring you some tea and something from the mess.”

 

Shepard held out her hand to keep Thane from rising out of his chair.  “No, no.  Stay.  Thanks, but I can’t have anything tonight.  I’m having an operation tomorrow.”  She took a deep breath and blew it out, feeling a chill take her as she thought again about the shiny silver device dangling over the bed in Med Bay and once again placing herself unconscious and at the mercy of Cerberus.

 

“Why?”  A simple question, delivered with nothing more than simple curiosity, but the answer was so complex to her.

 

“I’m...There’s...”  She shut her mouth, took another breath and tried again.  Thane said nothing, but watched her through the steam rising from his cup.  “Miranda says that there’s a problem with my cybernetics not fully integrating with my nervous system.  The operation tomorrow is supposed to correct that.  Miranda says it’s just a matter of tweaking the hardware and adjusting the DNA receptors, or something like that.  I don’t know.  She and Mordin were too busy speaking medical jargon.”  Her hands were cold, and she set the model down to wrap her hands around themselves, seeking whatever warmth she could find.  

 

“Then why are you so worried?”

 

Why, indeed?  She couldn’t quite pinpoint what was so troubling to her, aside from going back on the operating table.  Miranda was the picture of confidence about the whole thing, and Mordin and Chakwas had both put their seal of approval on it.  Shepard knew that she needed to have the operation in order to gain her full abilities.  She would even lose the glowing orange scars that creeped her out.  Everything about it was completely logical.  So why was she so worried?  Looking down at her hands wringing around each other, she shrugged.  “Dunno.”  

 

Thane gave her time to think.  It was one of the things she liked best about him.  He knew she wanted company, wanted to talk about what was bothering her.  She could use him to settle her nerves, and he would never judge her for either having them or for using him that way.  

 

Slowly, she said, “I think it’s just bringing back all the old fears and memories I had when I first woke up on the Lazarus station, and how confusing everything was back then.  I remembered dying, Thane, but then I was awake, and I didn’t know what had happened.  People don’t just come back from the dead, so obviously I didn’t die.  I figured someone had saved me.  Then I find out my rescuer is Cerberus, the same group that I was fighting when I was chasing Saren as a Spectre.  And I really did die.”  She looked up at him to see him still watching her with those deep, black eyes, a hint of emerald green shimmering in the depths.  “Miranda quizzed me, asking me about my history, my memories.  I managed to answer her questions, but I was never really honest with her.  I was confused for a long time.  I didn’t really know who I was.  I remembered being Shepard and doing all the things she was said to do, but there was no emotion attached to any of that.  It was like I was reading a book about someone else.”  She laughed bitterly.  “For the longest time, I thought I was an AI programmed to act like Shepard.  Finding EDI on board didn’t help.  If Cerberus could make an AI to run the ship, surely they could program an AI to think it was Commander Shepard.  Garrus was the one who got me through that, but it wasn’t easy for either of us.  I think I tried to kill myself with alcohol for a while.”

 

“I presume the emotions returned?  You speak about your past quite animatedly now.”

 

She nodded.  “Yes, eventually.  I think it’s like nerve damage.  The things that happened most recently are what I remembered best.  So when I finally did start feeling things attached to my memories, of course, the first thing I had to deal with was the Normandy getting destroyed and my getting spaced.”  She shuddered.  “Still gives me nightmares.  I think I’m back to my Academy days now.  I hope eventually I truly recall my childhood.  I think I was happy.”  She avoided looking at Thane.  “Anyway, I never told Miranda any of this.  Garrus is the only one who knows, and he’s sworn to secrecy.  I was afraid Miranda would think something was wrong with me and decide to put me under again, or maybe even start all over.  I can’t say I was entirely rational back then,” she said with a wry smile.  “Ironic.  Now I’ve told Miranda that I’m not quite right, and the first thing she does is set up an operation to fix it.  So yeah, I guess I’m a little nervous about tomorrow.”

 

“You are afraid that the essential part of you will be changed or removed by this operation?” he asked.

 

She thought about it for a moment, then gave a short nod.  “Logically, no.  Emotionally, yes.  I know it’s not rational, but I’m still...scared.”

 

Thane set his mug down and reached for her hands.  For a change, his normally cool hands felt warm on hers.  “You and I have both faced our fears numerous times in our lives.  Just because it is irrational does not negate the fact that it is still a fear, and we both know that you will move on in spite of your fear.  You are a warrior born, forged in battle.  You have already come back from the shores of death.  The gods will not suffer something to happen to you before you fulfill your purpose, which is most assuredly not to die on an operating table.  Rest easy, siha.”

 

She held his hands tightly, unwilling to let go.  “Easy to say, Thane.  Not so easy to do.”  She sighed.  “Sorry.  Tomorrow I’ll be strong, but tonight I just don’t have it in me.”

 

“Then allow me to be your strength tonight.”  Thane’s hands tightened on hers, and she could hear the undertones of sincerity and passion in his voice.

 

His promise tugged at her heart, making her wish for things that felt far too dangerous to indulge.  It was too late, though.  As much as she tried to remain the remote Commander, she couldn’t deny that Thane had reached through all her barriers to touch something private, something desperately craving the tenderness and affection he offered.  Brief touches in the hallway or mess, the way they partnered so perfectly on the battlefield, the regular late-night chats, his offer of total, whole-hearted support that night on the Citadel.  They had both been hurt before for various reasons, and now both were ready for something more, hoping that it would be reciprocated.

 

“I’d like that,” she whispered.  “I trust you, Thane.  With everything.  More than just having my back in battle, or someone with whom to while away an evening.  Since I met you, I’m actually glad to be alive again, to have something to fight for.”  

 

“I am grateful for the twists and turns of fate that brought us together, siha,” he rumbled as he rubbed a circle on the sensitive skin between her thumb and forefinger.  “Before I met you, I was simply going through the motions of living, deep in battlesleep and waiting for death to claim me.  Now I have much to live for.”

 

She felt her breath catch as his touch ignited a slow burn in her midsection, but she didn’t pull her hands away.  She stared into his eyes, catching again that hint of emerald green that lay under the dark sclera.  He stared back just as intensely, and it felt like the whole ship was holding its breath.  Her eyes skipped down to his perfectly full lips.  

 

“I should probably...um...go.  Karin wanted me to get lots of sleep tonight,” she finished lamely, but she made no move to extricate her hands from Thane’s.  Leaving was the last thing she really wanted to do.  The thought of heading back to her empty cabin and staring up at the ceiling for the rest of the night held zero appeal to her, but she still wasn’t ready to dive into a physical relationship with Thane.  

 

She wanted to kiss him so badly, and she knew that if she gave in, they wouldn’t stop with kissing.  She felt like she was walking a tightrope tonight.  On the one hand, her fears and insecurities were weighing her down, consuming her thoughts.  On the other hand, Thane was right here, his offer from the Citadel not forgotten by either of them and providing a constant undercurrent of electricity between them.  Even now, while she appreciated the calming touch of his hands on hers, it lit an undeniable spark inside her.  She could see the answering fire in his eyes and in the slow, sensuous way his thumb rubbed against her hand.

 

“Stay,” he said quietly.  Seeing the conflict in her face, he added, “We can talk.  Or you can take my cot.  There’s no need for you to be alone if you don’t wish to be.”

 

She wavered, and although she hated the idea of kicking the man out of his own bed, it sounded a hell of a lot better than going back to her cabin alone.  Thane squeezed her hands then placed them back on the model box, very clearly pulling back and reining in his emotions.  “Finish your model.  I will help.”  He carefully picked up the incomplete model and studied the aft section, visualizing in his head how it should look.  Then he started stirring through the remaining pieces with his elegant fingers until he found a certain piece.  “I believe this is the engine you’re looking for,” he rumbled.  

 

Shepard delicately plucked it from his fingers with a half smile.  “Thank you, Thane.”  He nodded, acknowledging her unspoken meaning behind the words as she bent to attach it to the model.  Hours passed as together they finished the model, only occasionally speaking and then of inconsequentials, such as the latest action vids, dining on the Citadel versus on Ilium, or the best scope for a rifle.  

 

When the model was finally complete, she set it gently back into the box.  She refused to look at the time, but her body was telling her it was very late.  Maybe now she could get some sleep.  In fact, even Thane’s spartan cot was looking tempting.  She stretched and yawned.

 

“My offer still stands, siha.”  When she looked puzzled as she thought back over their evening trying to remember what offer he was referencing, he elaborated.  “You can sleep here.  I find the engine core provides a rather soothing background noise that is very conducive to sleep.”

 

She started to demur.  “What about you?”

 

He lifted one shoulder in a shrug.  “We are on a space ship, enroute to Pragia for several more days.  I will sleep tomorrow.  It’s not as though I have any pressing engagements.”

 

Shepard gave in.  “Okay, but when you have a crick in your neck from sitting up in a chair all night, don’t blame me,” she said with a wry smile.  She stood up and stretched her back, stiff after sitting in that straight-backed chair for so many hours.  She quirked an eyebrow at him before she sat on his cot, and he nodded back to her.  She sank down with a sigh, pulled off her boots and set an alarm on her omni-tool..  “Good night, Thane.”  Her guilt was quickly swallowed up in the comfort of lying down and snuggling up in a warm blanket. The cot was surprisingly comfortable, much more so than she would have guessed.  She inhaled deeply, relishing the faint spicy scent of drell that clung to the blanket.  She thought that having someone still in the room, especially someone she had essentially kicked out of his own bed, would make it hard to fall asleep, but Thane was still and almost noiseless.  She cracked her eyes open to take a quick peek and saw that he had settled into a meditative pose.  Closing her eyes again, she wrapped the blanket tightly around her and willed the tension to leave her body.  Sleep stole gently up on her.  She wondered if it was a dream or real when she heard Thane say, “Sleep well, my siha.”

  



	17. Interlude - With Baited Breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garrus and Thane have an important discussion while Shepard is undergoing surgery.

 

What was it about Commander Shepard that made her so important to so many people, Thane mused.  He had ventured out of his solitary room in Life Support a short while ago to brew more tea and secure a late breakfast.  At this time of ship’s day, the mess was usually empty, with just Mess Sergeant Gardner cleaning up from breakfast and prepping for lunch.  Today, however, numerous crew members were milling about, getting an extra cup of coffee, making small talk, and casting nervous glances at the blacked out Med Bay windows.  

 

Shepard had issued a ship wide communiqué early this morning to all members letting them know she was undergoing a routine medical procedure and that she would be unavailable for the next 48 hours.  Miranda was in charge of ship’s operations, and Garrus was in charge of combat operations, should anything happen.  In spite of Shepard’s reassuring tone, the feeling of nervousness was palpable throughout the mess.  Thane had yet to venture up to CIC, but he was sure the mood would be more tense than usual up there as well.

 

Thane sipped his tea and watched the crew milling around.  This was the third time Kelly had come down from CIC in the past forty minutes, and Hawthorne had been in twice, in spite of the fact that he was on duty in CIC.  Even Jack had swept through the room earlier, although she loudly proclaimed she was only there for the food.  Her glances betrayed her as they did everyone else.  It felt as if the crew were metal filings, automatically orienting themselves toward Shepard’s magnetic personality, even if, or maybe even more so, now that she was in the Med Bay in an unknown condition.

 

He admitted to himself that he was as fascinated as any of the others.  After all, he was sitting out here where he, too, could keep an eye on the Med Bay when he could just as easily have taken his tea and breakfast back into his room.  But in there, her scent still lingered on his cot and blanket, making it harder to keep from slipping into memories of her.  Even now, he could perfectly recall the way her hair splayed and curled over his pillow, the way that the small wrinkle in her forehead eased in her sleep, the slow rise and fall of her chest under the blanket, and the careless way her arm dangled over the side.  

 

His fingers twitched in remembered desire to reach out and touch the strange fibers that adorned her head.  Her hair looked silky, like it would slide along his fingers like fine fabric, but as a flowing sheet of individual fibers.  It was fascinating to him.

 

Shepard had mentioned in one of their late night talks that it was longer than Alliance regulation length, but that she didn’t want to cut it.  She didn’t feel like trying to be the same person she had been before.  

 

It was with an internal sigh that Thane shook himself out of his memories.  He never gave away anything externally to say that he hadn’t been paying attention to his surroundings.  He would no longer deny that his feelings for his Commander had grown well past respect and liking.  Why now, he asked the gods.  Why, at the end of his life, did they see fit to not only bring him to another siha, but to make her so bright, so shining, so impossible to ignore?  She burned away the darkness that had sunk into his soul, had dragged him unwitting into the light.  Life had meaning again.  His son was speaking to him.  Even if it was stilted and awkward, they were making progress.  And now, for the first time in years, he felt his body desiring another.  He looked forward to their nights of conversation.  And last night...he had felt triumph when she agreed to stay in his room, but he ached for more.  He wanted to feel the texture of her smooth, scaleless skin under his fingertips.  He wanted to caress the oddly appealing curves on her body.  He wanted to explore her thoroughly, to find out if her neck was as sensitive as his, to see how different as well as how compatible they were.  

 

He had refrained from searching the extranet on drell-human liaisons.  For some reason, it felt like a betrayal of her trust to go searching for information on that.  For another, he preferred to find out on his own.  It was far too easy for drell to fall into memories.  Having something new to look forward to helped mitigate the urge for solipsism and kept him grounded in the here and now.  It was exciting to think about possible futures; that excitement had been missing from his life for far too long.

 

Thane shifted uncomfortably in his seat.  The problem with thinking about possible exciting and erotic futures was that they tended to excite the body at inopportune times.  Like when the object of your desire was lying unconscious in the Med Bay a few feet away.  Fortunately, he still had plenty of tea left, which was an excellent excuse for staying seated a while longer.

 

He saw out of the corner of his eye that Garrus had emerged from the main battery and headed into the galley.  However, he dismissed the turian’s movements until he unexpectedly joined Thane at the table.

 

“So...nice coffee today?” Garrus asked.

 

“It’s tea,” Thane pointed out.

 

“All those levo drinks smell the same to me,” Garrus said with a shrug.  “It’s hot, in a mug, and smells like dirt.”

 

“I could same the same about yours,” Thane replied.

 

“At least you’re not like those humans who can’t seem to function until they’ve had their morning coffee.  Always liked that about Shepard.  She’d be up and moving first thing, just like a turian.”  Like the others, Garrus cast an anxious glance at the Med Bay, then pointedly turned his body to face Thane.  “Just like she was up early this morning.”

 

“She had surgery scheduled.”

 

Garrus _hrmmed_ through his mandibles, managing to imbue the sound with discordant harmonics that sounded threatening to Thane’s drell hearing.  “Maybe I should clarify,” he said as he set his mug down.  His voice was pitched quietly enough that only Thane could hear him.  “She was up early this morning when she left Life Support, where she spent the night.”  

 

Thane didn’t bother to deny it, but he did wonder why the big turian had turned so threatening.  “Your point?”

 

“My point, assassin, is that I spent a long time putting Shepard back together after Horizon, and I still regret not putting a bullet in Alenko’s skull as he walked away.  I know how she feels about you, and if you hurt her, I won’t live with regret a second time.   Are we clear?”

 

Thane set his mug down.  His own gaze was unflinching as he leaned in slightly to meet Garrus’ steely glare.  “I will give you no cause for regret, Garrus.  Of that, I swear.”

 

Garrus’ reply was sarcastic.  “Really?  Because I will feel no compunction about putting a bullet in your corpse after you succumb to Keprel’s in a year.  Get treated or leave her alone.”

 

Now Thane was surprised.  “There’s no treatment for Keprel’s...” he began.

 

“ _Hadeas_!  Shepard’s been too busy to really ask questions.  Besides, she’s a soldier first and foremost.  But I’m a detective, and there’s plenty of down time between calibrations for me to follow up on my questions.  There are at least two experimental treatments in trials plus the option of a lung transplant.  Add in that we’ve got one of the foremost experts in the galaxy on genetic diseases singing showtunes one deck up, and you haven’t even talked to him.”  Now there was no mistaking the aggressive harmonics in the turian’s voice.

 

Thane’s eyes narrowed.  “I went to a great deal of trouble to keep the details of my life private, Vakarian.  I don’t appreciate you poking around where you’re not needed.”

 

“Shepard is family to me, Krios, and you know how turians value family.  I told her I’d walk into hell at her side, but I’ll be damned if I let you be the one to send her there.”

 

The two warriors stared at each other, neither willing to be the one who backed down first.  

 

“There are issues you don’t understand, Vakarian.  Reasons why those are not options for me,” Thane finally ground out.

 

“There are always options.  Shepard taught me that.  Besides, you owe her for your son.”

 

Thane growled then swallowed the sound.  Decades of training insisted that he not draw attention to himself, but it was getting harder to ignore Garrus’ threats.  “How?” he asked, desperate to know how Garrus could have found out about his son.

 

“Former C-sec.  Detective.  Still have friends on the inside.”  Garrus leaned back now, satisfied that he’d hit a nerve.  “Shepard shows up in C-sec with a drell, pulls strings to get them to bring in a human known to have criminal connections and interrogates him.  Rumors of a shootout shortly thereafter with a Spectre and a couple of drell involved.  C-sec hushes it up.  A drell suddenly joins C-sec under strange circumstances.  Bits and pieces, but it’s not until I see his name that the picture is clear.  New recruit’s name is Krios.  Now there aren’t all that many drell in the galaxy, and while you may have taken steps to hide your identity, your son didn’t.  Not many people would be able to connect you with Kolyat Krios, new C-sec recruit.  But I did.  Bailey did a good job covering up the details, but I can make an educated guess.  Your son got himself into some trouble, and Shepard pulled his ass out of the fire.  Now I don’t know if the hanar bother teaching their assassins about ethics and morals, but the way I see it is you owe Shepard.  A life for a life.  She saved your son.  You need to save yourself for her sake.”

  
It was a good thing that even the dinnerware on the Normandy was military grade and unbreakable.  The mug in Thane’s hand still dented from the pressure he applied to it.  “You speak of things beyond your understanding, Vakarian,” he said very quietly.

 

“I don’t care about reasons, Krios.  I only care about results.  Make her happy, and I’ll be your best friend for life.  Hurt her and, well...Shepard’s the one who’s big on second chances.  Not me.”  Garrus pushed his chair back.  “Good talking to you, Thane.  I’ve got some calibrations to finish up.”

 

Thane stared holes at the retreating turian’s back, wishing he could pummel Garrus until he needed matching cybernetics on the other side of his face.  Rarely had Thane been this angry, and it took him several minutes of sitting and staring at the battery door before he started to understand why.  He knew Kolyat had drawn on the strength of his last name to get his first commission as a hitman on the Citadel, but in the frenzy of everything that occurred afterward, he hadn’t thought to try and convince Kolyat to change his name.  Garrus was right.  There were few enough drell in the galaxy that those who knew the name Krios would be likely to seek out his son.  It felt like a cold hand gripped his heart.  He had failed to protect Irikah all those years ago.  Would history repeat itself with Kolyat?  He would have to discuss it in his next letter to his son, but carefully.  He didn’t want Kolyat to pull back in their tentative relationship because he thought his father was patronizing or paranoid.  He would also craft a letter to Milar, he decided.

 

His gaze flickered back to the Med Bay windows, which were still opaqued.  Shepard had been in there for over three hours now.  She had told him last night that the operation would probably take ten to twelve hours.  The wait, which had been interminable before, now seemed agonizing.  Garrus had stirred up emotions that had been long buried.  When he had first been diagnosed with Keprel’s, Irikah had argued with him for weeks about a lung transplant.  He told her he couldn’t.  She refused to accept his reasons.  It led to the biggest fight in their marriage, and to Thane’s shame, he had left her and Kolyat alone for a week.  It was the only time he had left without a contract as a reason.  When he finally came back, he found out she had added his name to the transplant list without his permission, which led to another fight.  They were still angrily at odds when Thane left to take his last contract, the one that led directly to Irikah’s death.  Looking back, he realized he still blamed himself for leaving her when they were both so angry at each other.

 

He was afraid.  The realization was sudden, and he stared unseeing at the walls.  He had promised Shepard everything, body and soul, but how could he truly keep that promise when he knew he would be dead within a year?  He prided himself on keeping his word, no matter what.  By dying of Keprel’s, would he be doing to Shepard what Irikah had done to him, leaving Shepard a broken, bitter husk?  This was different, he argued with himself.  She knew what she was getting into.  She was a warrior.  She understood that death was a risk they all took.  A traitorous voice in his head whispered that death in combat was a very different thing than the creeping, choking death by Keprel’s Syndrome.  Garrus was right in some respects - there were options.  He had ignored them for so long, believing he didn’t deserve them and readied for his final journey to the ocean.  Now he wanted to step back from that shore.  The lung transplant was still impossible, but the others...Maybe it was time to speak to Mordin.  

 

Or, as Garrus so inelegantly said, it was time to give her up.  

 

No.  That was one option he refused to consider.  He was ready to step back from that dark shore, he realized.  There was light in his life once again.  His reason for living was lying in Med Bay, undergoing an operation that she was terrified would forever alter her personality, but she didn’t shy away from it.  She did it because it gave her the best chance for victory, even if she lost something of herself.  

 

It was time for him to give up his false pride and seek help.  He finished his tea and headed to Mordin’s lab.

 

* * *

 

A/N:  This was supposed to be a very short chapter, just to show the tension of the crew while waiting to see if Shepard would come out of surgery.  Then Garrus decided he had something to say, and I learned a little bit more about Thane’s history than I expected.  I find it fascinating how sometimes the characters take charge of the story.

  
Also, thank you big time to [Orchidellia](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/2682754/) on ff dot net for agreeing to beta this and upcoming chapters.  She’s awesome!


	18. Tremors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard has to deal with the after-effects of surgery that aren't as expected.

“Miranda! What the hell is this!”  Shepard normally didn’t yell.  She was known for her icy temperament, even in the midst of battle.  She could count on one hand the number of times she’d truly lost it and yelled at a subordinate.  Now she’d have to add another hand.

 

“Calm down, Shepard. I’m sure it’s just a temporary aberration...”

 

“Aberration!  Miranda, I’m shaking!  I can’t hold on to anything or even stand up.  This isn’t a fucking aberration!  It’s a fucking disaster!”  Shepard was sitting up on the med bay bed, holding her hand flat out in front of her, and it was shaking like a leaf in the wind.  She tried to make a fist, and her fingers slowly obeyed, but there was no strength in her hand, and as soon as she stretched her fingers out, the tremors started again, this time shaking her entire forearm.

 

Miranda didn’t try to hide her frustration with her commanding officer.  “Shepard, this is not unexpected.  I told you to expect some side effects from the surgery...”

 

“You said headaches, fatigue, _slight_ loss of strength for a while,” Shepard interrupted again. “I can’t even hold a gun, let alone target something.  How the hell am I supposed to function?”

 

“Commander!”  Miranda’s tone was sharp enough to cut through the other woman’s diatribe.  “I told you it was likely there would be some regression in physical ability because of all the months you’ve already spent getting used to the non-optimized cybernetic systems.  You’ll simply have to give it time for your nervous system to rewire itself, so to speak.”

 

Mordin spoke up for the first time.  “Good news is that reintegration should happen quickly. Two to four weeks, based on test results over past twelve hours.  Excellent work, Operative Lawson.”

 

Shepard glared murderously at the salarian.  “Excellent?” she ground out between her teeth.

 

“Indeed,” he responded.  “Cerberus tech even more advanced than STG in regard to individual cellular regeneration.  Project Lazarus astonishing step forward in genetic and cybernetic engineering.  Potential implications most impressive.  Must consider this in light of several galactic issues.  Congratulations, Operative Lawson.”

 

“Enough,” Shepard snapped.  “Go congratulate each other somewhere far away from me.”  She turned to face her XO.  “Miranda, are you positive that these tremors will go away?  How long until they do?”

 

Miranda nodded and modulated her voice into a soothing tone.  Shepard’s glare said that she wasn’t impressed with the attempt.  “Yes, Commander.  As Mordin said, the initial projections show that it will take no more than four weeks for reintegration to be complete.”

 

“You told me three days,” she yelled.  “Now you’re saying four weeks?”

 

“Your sub-optimal integration was further advanced than I thought.  That’s good news, Shepard.  That means that when you’ve fully adapted to the new system, your reflexes and strength will increase even further.  The more physical therapy you can do, the quicker your nervous system should adjust.  I’ll give you a list of exercises that will trigger all the major and minor nerve systems.”

 

Shepard held out a hand to stop Miranda, then dropped her hand back to her lap so she wouldn’t have to watch it shake.  “Just...go away.  Both of you.  I want to be alone for a while.”  When Miranda opened her mouth to say something else, Shepard leaned forward, and her voice pitched dangerously low.  “I said, go away, Miranda.  You can talk to me later.  Send whatever you want me to see to my account.”  Shepard crossed her arms over her chest and glared at both of them.  Mordin had the good sense to head for the door immediately, although Shepard suspected it was more so that he could get back to his lab and start breaking down the Project Lazarus tech.  She had a feeling the Illusive Man would be pissed about his expensive technology getting into the hands of the STG, but she really didn’t care.  

 

She turned her best angry Commander gaze on Miranda, the one that had been honed in battles and endless N7 training exercises.  It worked on hardened Marines, and she was glad to see it worked on Cerberus civvies, too.  Miranda nodded and followed the salarian out the door.  “Just call if you have any further questions, Shepard.”  

 

She felt her lips curl up in an uncharacteristic snarl.  She had dozens of questions, but she wasn’t about to pose them to the Cerberus agent.  Not now.  Maybe later.  Maybe never.  She buried her face in her hands and held back from tears by sheer effort of will.  Maybe she could blame her unsteady emotions on the surgery, too.  Nerves, right?  She allowed herself three deep breaths, then lifted her head and considered her situation.

 

She held her hands out in front of her again and forced herself to think about the situation dispassionately.  The tremors were strong, severe even.  She lifted a foot off the bed, and it started shaking immediately.  She doubted she could walk right now.  Was it improving?  She had been awake less than an hour and couldn’t tell any difference.  For now, she would have to take Mordin’s and Miranda’s word that things would improve.  If they didn’t...well, she would face that problem if it came up.

 

Sighing, she pulled her legs to her chest and wrapped her hands around her knees.  If the doctors were right, this would mean a slight delay in their plans to go through the Omega 4 relay, but Shepard wasn’t worried about that.  They still had some missions to wrap up for her crew, and she had one personal stop that she wanted to make back on Ilium.  Plus Liara had sent her a terse message wanting to speak with her in person about something.  Shepard had planned to head for Ilium as soon as they were done with Pragia.  Maybe she could use Liara to help her get an independent physical checkup while they were there.

 

If Miranda was right, it might only take two weeks to recover from the surgery, which was a positive.  She wondered what sort of physical therapy Miranda had in mind.  “EDI, do I have any new messages from Miranda?”

 

“Yes, Commander.  Operative Lawson sent you a large file filled with numerous video clips and text explanations of several rehabilitative movements, along with a prescription for which movements are to be performed when and how often each day.  Would you like me to open any of the subfiles?”

 

“Not right now, EDI, thanks.  How’s Jacob coming with the resource mining?”

 

“Mr. Taylor has been conducting resource scans for thirteen hours and forty-two minutes thus far, and has gathered 2,035 units of eezo and 6,700 units of iridium.  From his comments, he is nearly finished scanning the planet and heartily sick of the process.

 

Shepard chuckled.  Misery loves company.  “Good on both counts.  Maybe I’ll rotate scanning duty among all the specialists.  Meh, never mind.  Can’t really see Jack or Grunt bothering to even pretend to do it.  As well, if you want something done right, do it yourself, right, EDI?”

 

“On the contrary, Shepard.  There is substantial evidence, both experimental and anecdotal, that the desired results can be achieved by multiple individuals, as long as those individuals are apprised of the goals and the process by which to accomplish those goals.”

 

“That was a joke, EDI.”

 

There was a pause.  “Ah.  Yes.  I see that now.”

 

Shepard quirked a smile.  At least a few things could still amuse her.  “Thanks, EDI.  That’ll be all.”

 

“Logging you out, Commander,”

 

Shepard sighed.  She hoped Miranda hadn’t sent her yoga.  She really hated yoga.  She also despised being bored, but she couldn’t even hold her omni-tool still enough to read anything, and she was in no mood for company.  Even her brief interchange with EDI had taxed her limits on social interactions for the moment.  Well, Miranda had told her to sleep as much as possible in order to allow her nervous system time to adjust.  Maybe a nap was in order, and hopefully things would be improved when she woke up.  

 

* * *

 

When she blinked herself awake, nothing appeared to have changed, except that the lights were at half strength.  Hoping against hope, she stuck her hand out and cursed silently under her breath when it still shook as strongly as it had before she’d slept.

 

“Awake now, Commander?”  Dr. Chakwas’ voice drifted from the front of the Med Bay.  

 

Shepard turned herself over with an effort so she could make out the doctor.  “Awake.  Unchanged,” she muttered.

 

“On the contrary, Commander.  I’ve been monitoring your vitals.  The tau coefficient on your parasympathetic nervous system has decreased by five percent in just a matter of hours.  Other markers are showing similar signs of improvement.  It’s small right now, and probably not noticeable, but you are improving.”  She swung the monitor around so Shepard could see what she was talking about, but all she saw was a bunch of colored lines on a graph.

 

Shepard shrugged.  “Sorry, doc.  You know I’m not up on the mumbo jumbo.  All I know is I still have the shakes.”  

 

Karin walked over to where the Commander was still lying on the bed and patted Shepard’s hand.  “Well, it’s early yet,” the doctor replied.  “Don’t worry, Commander.  I’m convinced that everything is on the mend.  Now, do you want to stay here or go back to your cabin?”

 

Shepard snorted, and the doctor smiled.  “I had to ask, even if I knew what the answer would be.  Do you think you can walk?”

 

For an answer, Shepard pushed herself upright and swung her legs clumsily over the side, but before she could put her feet on the floor, Karin put her hand on Shepard’s shoulder, effectively keeping her seated.  “Slowly, Commander, until you’re sure you can stand.”

 

Shepard brushed her hand away angrily.  “I’m fine, Karin!”  Mostly she wanted to get the hell out of the Med Bay and back to the safety and comfort of her own cabin.  With both feet on the floor, she pushed herself upright.  Her knees wobbled, but she held onto the bed until they locked in place.  Take a deep breath, she forced one food to slide forward.  Her legs felt like they were both asleep, with pins and needles pricking all across the skin and muscles made of rubber.  Slowly she made her way to the door, resting for a moment at the next bed.  All she had to do was get to the door, then the elevator.  Then it wouldn’t matter if she crawled to her cabin, at least no one would see her there.  She gauged it would take six steps to get to the door.  

 

 One.

 

Two.

 

Three.  

 

Her traitorous knee wobbled and gave out, landing her in an undignified heap on the floor.  “God damn it!” she yelled and shoved her fists into her eyes to keep the misery inside.  She was so focused on maintaining her composure that she failed to notice the door hiss open until a pair of black leather boots stood directly in front of her.

 

“Siha.”  Thane’s voice was comforting as he squatted down in front of her.  “You wish to leave this place?”

 

All she could manage was a wordless nod as she wrapped her arms around herself.  “Then you shall do so,” he told her as he picked her up effortlessly.  Shepard wanted to die from embarrassment at having to be carried from the Med Bay.  Maybe she should have stayed there.  She despised showing weakness in front of her crew, but instead of taking her to her cabin, Thane carried her the short distance to Life Support, and mercifully no one was in the hallway.

 

Thane deposited her carefully on his cot.  The blanket was uncharacteristically rumpled, as if he had just been sleeping himself.  She pulled it up and buried her face in it.  “Are you in pain, siha?”   She shook her head and without looking up, stuck her hand out so Thane could see it shaking.  He took it in his own hand, stilling the motions, and as he was wont to do, began rubbing his thumb on the sensitive underside of her wrist.  “Tell me what is wrong,” he said quietly.

 

In broken sentences, pausing to catch her breath and never actually breaking into tears, she relayed what Miranda and Mordin had told her.  He asked to see the exercises Miranda had recommended.   “What is yoga?” he asked.

 

“Aw, fuckit,” she groaned.  “I’m going to stuff Miranda out the garbage chute.”

 

Thane ignored her grumbling as he scanned through some of the vid clips.  “Interesting.  Not dissimilar from some of the training moves I learned, although those utilized continuous movements".  

 

She harrumphed.  “That’d be something to see,” she muttered.

 

Thane’s lips quirked up in a smile that came more easily to his face nowadays.  “I can show you.  Perhaps, I can even teach them to you as part of your rehabilitation.”

 

After a moment she grudgingly admitted, “Well, I wouldn’t mind seeing your moves.  As long as you’re offering,” she added, making it clear that this was all his idea and she was firmly committed to being upset for a while longer.

 

The assassin gave her a half bow and stood to remove his jacket.  She rarely saw him without his jacket and took the opportunity to look with appreciation at what was revealed:  firmly muscled arms with black stripes that wound down to his wrists and a chest just as deeply muscled.  Without the jacket, she could see more stripes forming an intriguing pattern across his torso.  Logically, that meant they should also wind down his legs, and that thought happily distracted her from her current woes for several seconds.  

 

He pushed the table and chairs further against the side wall to add another half meter of open space in the small room.  Shepard drew her legs up on the cot and wrapped her arms around her knees so she’d be out of his way.  Thane didn’t acknowledge her as he stepped to the middle of the open space, closed his eyes and drew a deep slow breath.  What he did next nearly took her breath away.

 

Shepard was a fan of contemporary dance and had seen several videos and even a few live performances when she could swing it.  But those were mainly human dances, and they were filled with energy and fire, and the entire dance was about expressing emotion through body language, whether it was love, anger, despair or anything in between.  When Thane moved, she felt the same strength and power that she did from great dancers, but instead of bursting with emotion, he was completely calm.  Instead of dancing and darting about the cabin, his movements were slow and precisely controlled, yet flowed one to the other with silken grace and a sense of barely restrained power.  She could see the tension in his arms and chest as his muscles bunched and relaxed; even his fingers were precisely positioned in relation to his hands, arms, and body.  If there was an emotion attached to him, it would be confidence.

 

She had seen videos of tai chi, and this vaguely reminded her of those vids.  She sped his motion up in her memory and watched as his slow movements became a vivid fight against an invisible opponent.  Hand placed so, foot sweeping an opponent off balance, extending an arm to either block a blow or break an opponent’s grip.  To a warrior like Shepard, it was beautiful, and she watched entranced.  As she watched, she saw how he adapted movements to take advantage of the space, here pushing an opponent into a corner or tripping them up against the table, although not once did his focus and concentration waver.  It seemed too soon when he circled back to where he started and sank into perfect stillness.  

 

“That was beautiful,” she told him sincerely as he opened his eyes and focused on her.  

 

“Thank you,” he said as he pulled a chair out and sat facing her.  Up close, she could see that his breathing was elevated and she caught a faint scent of musk and spice.  Apparently, it was also a bit of a workout for him.  “It’s a moving meditation I learned as a young child.  Focusing on the movements is a way to still the mind.  To do it properly requires a great deal of concentration and years of practice.”  He paused before he asked his next question.  “Tell me, siha, do you feel you gain much with your meditation sessions with Samara?”

 

Shepard leaned back against the wall and thought about it before shrugging.  “I suppose.  It was hard in the beginning to sit there and think about nothing, but it’s gotten easier with practice.  It doesn’t really seem to be all that beneficial though.  Maybe if I lived as long as an asari, I could spend hours meditating, but to do it as much as she does seems a waste of my time.”

  
“You are a person of action,” he agreed.  “I think this style of meditation would suit you better.  If you wish, I would be pleased to teach you,” he offered.   

 

She ducked her head to try and hide her shy smile.  “I would like that.”  Like was an understatement.  She loved spending time with her assassin, as she thought of him, and the idea of a legitimate excuse to spend even more time with him warmed her through and through.

 

“Let’s get started then.”

 

She blinked.  “Now?”

 

“Are you doing anything else?”

 

“Well, no, but my hands...”

 

“You have gross muscle control.  The rest will come in time.  We will start with your arms, since your legs are still unsteady.”  Thane lifted his arms to the starting position and nodded to her to do the same.  She copied him as best she could, frowning as her hands started shaking.  “Now, slowly,” he said as he moved his arms.  She mimicked his movements, although hers lacked his grace and style.

 

“Again,” he said, following words with actions.  “And again.”

 

Even though it was a simple enough movement, bringing her right arm down over her chest and her left arm sweeping out, the nervous system incompatibilities were making it nigh impossible for her to follow his instructions.  She grew more and more frustrated as her body failed to follow her commands.  After the tenth or so time when she unintentionally banged her arms together she growled and threw herself back against the wall.  “It’s useless,” she ground out.

 

“Why do you say that?”

 

As much as she liked Thane, his quiet and perfectly reasonable question irritated the hell out of her tonight.  “Because I can’t even wave my arms around without looking like a drunken idiot,” she spat.  She crossed her arms over her chest and pulled her knees up on the cot, aware she was acting like a petulant child, but too upset to really care about it.  It was also a measure of her trust in Thane that allowed her to let her guard down around him to such an extent.

 

“I have seen several ‘drunken idiots’ before, and you look nothing like them,” he responded, ignoring her snort of disapproval.  “Siha, you know the exercises will improve your functioning more quickly, so what is really behind your disturbance?”

 

She dropped her head onto her knees to avoid looking at him.  She owed him an answer.  He was always there to talk to, listened without judging over the past months to her angry rants and self-doubts.  While she considered all her crew and specialists to be friends, Thane held a special place in her heart and soul.  Turning her head to the side so she could look at him, she responded slowly.  “I’ve always been strong, Thane.  Never sick, never injured too badly, at least that I couldn’t see the recovery in the near future.  But ever since I’ve come back, it seems like I’m a stranger to myself.  I get over one thing, and something else happens.  Miranda’s always watching for signs of weakness.  I’ve got a crew that expects me to be perfect all the time, and do you have any idea how hard it is to corral people like Grunt and Jack?  

 

“Miranda, Mordin and Karin all swear up and down that I’ll get over this, but I’ve never been in a situation like this before, where my body is sick, and there’s no obvious cause like a gunshot or broken bones.  I know I have to be patient, but I can’t.  I just want to go to sleep and wake up with this all being a bad dream.”  She laughed wryly.  “Would make a nice change of pace from my usual bad dreams.”

 

Thane listened quietly.  “I understand, siha.  You’re still in the first stage of understanding your sickness and unwilling to deal with what has happened to you.  But trust in your doctors.  You recruited the best in the galaxy for a reason, did you not?  They say you are improving, so believe them.  Changes are usually slow and imperceptible when dealing with illness, but they are happening.  You must have faith that the situation will improve.”  He paused before adding, “Do not despair.  You will recover.”

 

Shepard suddenly realized what an ass she’d been.  She let out a startled “Oh!” before shoving her hand against her mouth.  “Oh, Thane, I’m so sorry.  I didn’t mean to be such an insensitive jerk.”  She moved her hand to cover her eyes and tried to sink into the cot.  Here she’d been pissing and moaning about a minor problem that three of the best doctors in the galaxy swore would go away to a man dying of an incurable disease.   _Open mouth, insert foot.  Good job, Shep_ , she thought.

 

“Siha, everyone is entitled to a moment of self pity at times like this.”  

 

Nope, she still was still too mortified to look at him. She felt his cool hand wrap around hers and tug gently.  When she wouldn’t uncover her eyes, he pulled harder, exerting enough force that she couldn’t resist without making a scene, and she’d already done enough of that.  “Siha,” he tried again.  “I am not upset.  I have long ago come to terms with my illness.”

 

“Well, I haven’t,” she muttered.  “You seem so healthy most of the time that I forget.”

 

“I prefer it that way.  I would much prefer to focus on living in the days I have left than to think about my death.   _You_ have brought about that change in me.  It is thanks to you that I look forward to each day with joy instead of simply marking the days as I pass through them.”

 

“I still can’t imagine you ever having a pity party,” she said morosely.  “You’re always in control.”

 

He made a strangely discordant thrumming noise in his chest, then abruptly, he spoke in jerky phrases.   _“The doctor’s words drop like stones into my stomach. I wander the streets aimlessly for hours.  Not a bullet but my own body killing me.  There will come a day when I drown in my own lungs.  I dread telling Irikah, what will happen to my family?  Who will raise my son?  What do I do?”_  

 

His fall into solipsism startled her into looking at him.  He was staring into the distance before he blinked both sets of eyelids and focused back on her.  “Yes, siha.  Even I had a ‘pity party’, and I assure you, it took quite a long time before I was able to come to terms with the diagnosis.  So I do understand what you’re going through.”

 

She reached out and took his hand in hers, squeezing gently. I’m sorry,” she said again.  “I’ll try to emulate you.”

 

He squeezed it back and then lifted her hand to his lips, pressing them against her skin.  For such a gentle kiss, it seared her skin.

 

“What did you do?  When you found out?” she asked.

 

“I prayed.  I meditated.  I despaired.  But then it was quickly overwhelmed by Irikah’s death, and I spared it no more thought for many years.  It is only now that I find myself again in need of prayer and meditation.”

 

“You don’t despair?”  She did.  Every time she thought of his impending death, she found herself floundering in distressed sadness.  She wanted to fix it, but there was nothing in her past that gave her a clue on how to proceed, so she mostly ended up ignoring it, even though she sensed it was the wrong thing to do.

 

“No,” he told her quietly.  “I refuse to give in to it.  I focus on the joy of this new life I find myself in.  For the first time in my life, I am part of a team.  There are others who care about me, who will protect me as I protect them.  There is camaraderie in the mess.  There is my son, back in my life.  Most of all, there is you.”  He released her hand to brush an errant strand of hair away from her face.

 

She covered his hand with her and brought it to her lips, returning the kiss he had given her and was gratified when she saw his inner eyelids blink suddenly.  He was just as affected by her as she was by him.  

 

The butterflies were back in her stomach, but she ignored them.   _Live for the moment,_ she thought.  They had precious few left to them.  Keeping hold of his hand, she slid forward on his cot until her knees were bumping against his.  

 

She leaned in and pressed her lips against his the way she had so many times in her daydreams.  They were as soft and perfect as she remembered from their kiss on the Citadel.  The exotic scent of coffee, spices and leather was back, sharper now from his exercise.  She held his hand as tightly as she could, anchoring them together.  

 

Thane’s mouth moved against hers, urging her to open to him and she gladly complied.  Time stopped as they explored each other, gently and delicately seeking and inviting the other.  She moved her free hand up and brushed along the dark red ribbing on the side of his neck.  It felt soft and warm, almost velvety.  Thane growled low in his throat and pulled her closer, his mouth more demanding on hers.

 

Shepard felt like she was melting into a being of pure desire in his arms.  All she wanted was to feel his body against hers, to feel skin on skin.  She ran her hand down his shoulder and arm, feeling the iron of his muscles under the rough texture of his skin.  She lost herself in his kiss, wordlessly experimenting, varying the pressure of her lips against his, tasting how different he was from any of the men she had been with before.  

 

Suddenly there was a sense of flying, and she found herself sitting in his lap, Thane having apparently grown tired of the distance between them.  She didn't mind at all and pressed her body closer against his.  Now she could sense how cool his skin was against her overheated body, and she pressed her hand against his chest to feel his heartbeat thudding there.  This felt so good, like she could finally put her burdens and worries aside and rest safe and secure in his arms, knowing that finally there was someone who would protect her unto his last breath.  She trusted him, more than she had anyone else in her life.  

 

She brushed her hand over the velvet ribbing at his neck again, eliciting another growl and causing Thane to reach up and grab her hand and pull back suddenly.  "What?  Did I hurt you?" she asked breathlessly.

 

Thane rested his forehead against her and kissed her softly on the lips.  He was breathing hard as he shook his head.  "On the contrary," he panted into her lips.  "That section of drell anatomy is quite sensitive under the right conditions.  I have no desire to push you further than you are willing to go."

 

“I changed my mind.”

 

He pulled back and looked at her quizzically, with no small amount of worry in his expression.

 

“I don’t want to wait any more.  I want you.  Everything you promised me that night on the Citadel.  You said you would be willing.  Well...so am I.”

 

The smile on his face was so open and unguarded that it made her heart flutter.  “I assure you, nothing has changed for me, siha.”  He pulled her close and kissed her so long and hard that her toes were curling before he released her.  "However, your body still needs rest and recovery.  It would be wrong of me to push you beyond your limits so soon."

 

She groaned in frustration as she leaned in to kiss him again.  Her timing sucked!  She would have stroked his neck again in a blatant ploy to bring him to her viewpoint, but he kept a tight hold on her hand.  "We could consider it rehabilitation therapy.  Much more pleasant than yoga," she argued.

 

He smiled as he whispered into her ear.  "I want you completely recovered so that I can worship every inch of your body as you deserve when you come to me.  For that, you need your stamina back."

 

Her breath whooshed out of her, and her entire body sizzled in a sexual rush at his words.  They conjured up images of the two of them entwined right here on his cramped cot, pale skin against green and black, his body pressing down on hers.  Stamina, he said?  So add in the table, the chairs, back up against the cold window overlooking the drive core.  In another era, she might have swooned in his arms.  As it was, she felt her body tighten in expectation along with a surge of heat throughout.  "I don't want to wait that long," she complained as she kissed along his jawline.

 

"Then consider it incentive for your rehabilitation schedule.  The sooner you recover, the sooner I can devour your delicious body."

 

"You are an evil man, Thane Krios."

 

"I never claimed to be a saint, siha.  

 

* * *

 

A/N: Thank you to Orchidellia on ff dot net, my beta reader!

 


	19. Touched, Tempted, Bothered, Bedeviled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thane teaches Shepard his training movements to help in her rehabilitation.

They were still three days out from Pragia.  It had been only slightly less than twenty four hours since she had awakened from Miranda’s second Frankenstein surgery, as she thought of them.  Dr. Chakwas had been up to her cabin twice so far, once with breakfast and once with lunch.  She allowed Miranda and Mordin up to her cabin and suffered through their examination, in part because she refused to set foot outside her cabin until she could walk on her own feet, but also because they both kept messaging her incessantly on her progress, and it was simply easier to let them poke and prod for twenty minutes than to keep avoiding their messages.  Garrus had wanted to visit, but she begged off for another day.  

 

Instead, she holed up with EDI, and they went over the star charts that Shepard had asked her to research several weeks ago.  EDI had sifted through the millions of potential star systems and narrowed it down to just a few hundred.  Shepard pored over the systems, trying to figure out which ones might be home to the elusive Prothean archives that she hoped were there.  By midafternoon, she had it narrowed down to a couple dozen systems.  Unfortunately, two of them were far away from any operating mass relay, and the thought of opening a mass relay to an unknown system was more than a little unsettling.  In fact, that very action had led to humanity’s first interstellar war, and even given the severity of their situation, that wasn’t a can of worms she was ready to open.  However, EDI had identified probable locations for three of the archives that were within reach in the known mass effect relay network.  Tempting though it was, investigation would have to wait until after they had completed the Collector mission.

 

Clearing her screen, she saw a request waiting from Thane.  He wanted to know if she would like to continue her rehabilitation practices with him.  Unbidden, a smile graced her face, and suddenly she could think of nothing else she would rather do.  He must have been keeping tabs on his messages, because less than two minutes after she sent an affirmative, he walked into her cabin.

 

“Good afternoon, siha,” he greeted her.

 

“Dives into the pearly waters?”  They were still playing their game.  She had an idea of what siha meant, but it was more fun for her to make up meanings.

  
“That sounds like a hanar interpretation, not drell,” he stated as he drew close to her desk chair.  He held out a hand; it was cool against hers as he helped her up.  She wouldn’t mention it, but she appreciated the support getting down the three stairs.  Earlier today, she’d stumbled to her knees while climbing the three short stairs to her office area.  She was glad no one else had been around to see it.

 

“How are you feeling today?”

 

“Better, although admitting it made Miranda far too smug for my liking.  Mordin, too.”

 

“Perhaps they are simply pleased that you are making progress.  You are walking on your own today.  That is much improved from last night.”

 

“True, but my stamina is sadly still lacking,” she teased.

 

He guided her to the couch and helped her sit.  “Then we shall simply have to work harder on your rehabilitation,” he said as he quirked a tiny smile.  “Shall we begin?”

 

She nodded.  “What do you have in mind?”

 

He took off his coat and laid it on the couch next to her.  “When I was a child, newly arrived in the Guild, I was taught a series of movements, or _takats_ , to strengthen my muscles and learn control.  I believe they will have similar benefit for you.  The first one taught is called Beginner Mind.  Even though it’s the simplest, to perform it correctly requires skill and coordination.”  He moved to the center of the open space in her cabin.  “Watch me, siha.”

 

_Gladly_ , she thought, then composed herself enough to commit his moves to memory.  It was indeed a simple series of movements, barely twenty steps long, but it had him turning and taking full advantage of the small space.  She recognized the arm movements he had taught her last night, and this time, she saw the tension even down to his fingers even though every motion was smooth as silk.  He ran through it twice more.  “Do you think you can copy it?”

 

She nodded and heaved herself up off the couch, refusing to wait for a helping hand.  He stood to the side while she took his place.  She had an excellent memory, and his movements were easy to copy.  At least, in her head.  Getting her body to cooperate was much more problematic.  Instead of her foot sliding silently over the carpet, it came down three inches short of her goal with a galumphing stomp.  The next step was no prettier.  She mimicked his arm movements better than she did last night, but when she tried the turn, she ended up hopping on one foot and windmilling her arms instead of smoothly spinning in place.  She growled in frustration as she finished the last move well over a meter away from where she should have ended up.

 

“Be easy, siha.”  Thane guided her back to the beginning spot.  “No one, not even myself, masters it on the first try.”  That got a short laugh out of her, as he intended.  “Perhaps you should be grateful for the success you had.”

 

“Success?  What, that I didn’t fall on my ass?”

  
“Precisely,” he answered in that dry tone he used to tease her.

 

“Hmpf.”  

 

He maneuvered her back to the beginning position. “Let me help you.”  He stood behind her, his chest almost touching her back.  His arms came around her so that he could wrap his hands gently around her wrists.  “Now begin,” he murmured in her ear.  She shivered in delight at the sound.

 

She brought her hands up to the starting position.  Thane’s hands were cool, his fingers feather light against her skin as he guided her through the movements.  It was easier and harder, both, the second time through.  She remembered the movements, but at least half her attention was on the sexy drell just behind her.  Even though she couldn’t see more of him than his green arms with the black stripes overlaying hers, he filled her senses.  She could feel his energy pulsing against her back, his low gravelly voice murmuring encouragement into her ear, the spicy scent that was uniquely Thane.  When they reached the spin near the end, he slid his leg between hers to brace her as they turned.  This time, she ended up almost where she was supposed to.  

 

Thane stepped away, and she immediately missed his nearness.  “How did that feel?”

 

“Very good,” she replied, drawing out the first word.  

 

He responded with that low rumbling sound that was his quiet laugh.  “It did indeed.  Can you try it on your own?”

 

_I can, but it felt a hell of a lot better with you_ , she thought.  Aloud, she only said,  “Of course,” and began again.  She was able to concentrate better without Thane behind her, but she still was stepping forward awkwardly and hitting the ground hard with her foot.  When she reached the spin, she lost her balance and started hopping to catch her balance.  Thane was immediately there, catching her around her waist and steadying her.  “Thanks...”  Her breath stopped when she realized she was face to face with him, nearly as close as they had been last night in his room.  It would only take a small motion to press her lips against his perfect ones, but she felt like a fly trapped in amber, unable to take her eyes off his.  She was aware of her breathing speeding up, even though she had stopped moving.  His scent filled her nose; it was so sexy, so much a part of him, that just smelling it turned her on.  She longed to taste his mouth again, feel his tongue against hers.  As if sensing her intent, he pulled away.

 

“Nearly done,” he rumbled.  His voice was slightly ragged as he stepped back, and his hands caressed her side as if reluctant to let go.  She suddenly wished she was wearing her sports bra instead of a loose tshirt so that his hands would touch her bare flesh.  She ached for his touch so badly that it was almost painful.  He made a shooing motion for her to continue the _takat_ , and with a reluctant sigh, she did so.

 

He stood back a little further than he had earlier.  “How are you feeling?  Do you need a rest?”

 

She considered then shook her head.  “No, I’m good.  I want to keep going.”  She was tired, but it felt good to move, and she enjoyed the mental challenge of trying to figure out the movements.  It was much more interesting than getting on the treadmill or doing Miranda’s hated yoga.  She had always thrived on challenges and was willing to push hard to learn what Thane had to teach her.  Besides, there was the erotic promise of him in her arms as soon as she could regain control of her body.  

 

“Then do it again,” he ordered, falling into the role of taskmaster.  

 

Twice more she went through the _takat_ , but this time, he stopped her in a few places and pointed out where her arm or leg movements weren’t quite correct.  Some she could fix, but others were still beyond her control, and she still couldn’t get the spin correct.  He made her slow down so she could keep her balance.  

 

She went over it several more times, sometimes only focusing on one section, sometimes completing the entire movement series.  She lost track of the time, but after what seemed an eternity, her entire body was aching and the tremors were back in her hands.  Sweat dripped down her neck to be wicked up by her tshirt or disappear between her breasts.  

 

Thane soon called a halt.  “Enough, Shepard.  You need to rest.  You cannot expect perfection in an hour, especially given your current physical state.”

 

For once, she didn’t feel like arguing with him.  The couch looked so inviting.  She was tired, that was the only excuse she had for why her bare foot tripped on the soft carpeting, sending her sprawling forward.  She braced for impact, then realized Thane had moved with his extraordinary speed and caught her close.  His arms were wrapped tight across her torso, pulling her so that her back was tight against his chest and supporting most of her weight.  For a moment, neither of them moved.

 

With excruciating slowness, he slid one hand up from her waist, sliding over her stomach and chest, brushing against her breast and causing her throat to go dry.  He brushed her hair back from her neck and leaned in close.  He licked a drop of sweat from her neck just under her ear.  She moaned involuntarily and dropped her head further to the side, granting him more access to her neck.

 

His other arm tightened across her midsection as he bit and kissed her neck.  His lips caressed her skin, moving from place to place until he had determined the most sensitive spot on her neck.  He attacked that singular spot with lips and teeth, alternately biting until she whimpered, then kissing the hurt away with tongue and lips.  He licked the spot where the bottom of her ear met her neck, then bit gently down on her earlobe.  

 

Shepard felt like she could dissolve into his kisses.  He was all she wanted and she couldn’t think past the feel of his mouth on her neck, his arm against her stomach, but she wanted more.  She started to turn in his arms so she could press up against him, but he simply tightened both his arms around her, holding her in place.  He growled quietly, negatively, telling her without words to stay where she was.  

 

Fine, if he wouldn’t let her turn around, maybe she could move things along in a different way.  Both her hands came up to cover the one against her waist.  Slowly she exerted force downward, trying to get his hand to move toward the aching emptiness between her legs, but it was like trying to bend steel.  In response, he went back to that sensitive spot on her neck and suckled hard, making her forget all about her intentions.  She would have a mark tomorrow, but right now, all she cared about was the exquisite sensations flowing down her body from the touch of his mouth on her skin.  Her breath grew reedy and a note of desperation crept into her moans.  He was torturing her in the sweetest way possible, and they were both caught up in the other.  She couldn’t take much more of this, with him focusing on one tiny spot on her body, sensitive as it was, while the rest of her was crying out for attention.  Aside from his lips on her neck and one hand toying with her hair, nothing else was moving.  Every instinct in her demanded motion, hands touching, bodies colliding, skin brushing against skin, but he was denying them both.

 

“Stop.  Stop!” she gasped.

 

Instantly, his lips left her neck, and he rested his forehead against the back of her head while still cradling her against him.  “Did I hurt you, siha?”

 

“No.  God, no.”  She still couldn’t catch her breath.  “But if you don’t plan on carrying through, you need to stop while I still have some sanity left.”

 

“I apologize.”  His hand brushed the hair away from the back of her neck, and he pressed delicate kisses against her spine.  In spite of the gentle touch, they soon had her shivering in his arms.  

 

“Thane!”  All she wanted to do was shred his clothes until his body was naked against hers, and instead she had to make do with these delicate, teasing kisses that were driving her insane.

 

He placed one last, lingering kiss at the base of her neck and took a deep, shuddering breath.  “You tempt me into forgetting my vows like almost nothing else ever has, siha.”

 

“I tempt you?” she asked, putting a strangled emphasis on the first pronoun.  “You have no idea how much I want to drag you to that bed and have my wicked way with you.

 

She felt his lips curve up against her neck.  “I hope as much as I desire it.”  He sighed and started to walk them toward the couch.  “But I made a promise, and I will not forsake it, no matter how much you tempt me otherwise.”

 

Maybe logic would work.  She was desperate enough to try anything.  “You know, it’s not like I’m going to break, Thane.”

 

“You are the strongest woman I have ever encountered,” he agreed.  “But your body is ill.  You need time to recover, and I would not hurt you for anything.   When we come together, I would have my warrior angel strong enough to spread her wings and love me back with the same strength and ardor.  For that, I will wait.”

 

“That’s what siha means.  Warrior angel.  Am I right?”

 

He nodded.  “One of Arashu’s own, a tenacious protector who is fierce in her wrath.  That is how I see you, Shepard.  You protect not only your crew, but the entire galaxy, and woe to any who would harm those you hold dear.  Few are privileged to meet even one siha in their lifetime.  I have met and loved two, a bounty of richness I scarce believe I deserve.”  Still holding her, he kissed her neck again.  “But I will greedily grab onto what I have been given and strive my utmost to be worthy of you.”

 

Shepard sighed in regret as he finally set her down on the couch.  “You are the most eloquent and sexy man I have ever met, Thane.  You are also the most stubborn.”  

 

He deliberately stood next to the fish tank instead of sitting next to her.  “I need to have that strength of will to stand up to my siha.”  

 

She patted the couch next to her.  “Sure you don’t want to sit?”

 

“I think it’s safest for both of us if I remain here, siha.”

 

“Figures,” she muttered.  With a sigh that reflected deep suffering, she flopped backward on the couch and tucked her hands behind her head.  “Fine.  So we can talk for a while.  Unless you want to leave?”  

 

He shook his head again.  “No.  This is as far as I’m willing to be from you right now.”

 

“Okay, then we can talk.  We can do that.”  She studied him through half closed eyes.  “Tell me something happy from your childhood, before you went to the Guild.”

 

Thane crossed his arms and leaned against the fish tank as he sifted through memories.  Once or twice, he looked like he might fall into solipsism, but he caught himself.  When he finally spoke, it was in a normal conversational voice, not the jerky fragments of solipsism.  “You must understand that drell memory recall is not fully accessible before the age of six or seven, so what I remember is more fragmented, just a few images and feelings, not wholly trustworthy.”  She nodded, and he continued.

 

“My father worked for a power company as a thermal engineer.  He had an assignment on another planet.  I cannot now recall its name.  He decided to take me and my mother, who was pregnant with my brother.  I remember being excited at the prospect of having a younger brother to play with.  I had just turned five years old.”

 

Shepard closed her eyes and imagined Thane as a cute five year old drell.  Or tried to.  He was so vibrant and intense that she had trouble imagining him as anything other than the drell standing in front of her.  

 

“My father worked all day, but my mother took me out to see the area around the development.  It was the first time I had been away from Kahje, the first time I saw mountains and felt dry air on my skin that was a result of nature, not the environment domes.  It was cold.  There was snow on the mountains, and one day it snowed in the colony.  I remember standing there and watching the snowflakes melt on my hands.  It seemed like everywhere I went there were new miraculous sights to see.  The colony was situated near a geothermal hot spot for energy generation, which meant there were geysers and mud pots all around the colony.  Overhead there was a thin ring visible even in the daylight, but at night...at night it was truly mesmerizing.  That thin white ring reflected glints of every color in the spectrum.  I never wanted to go to bed, and my parents would sit out with me, talking quietly. I didn’t pay attention to their words, too caught up in the beauty of this new world in front of me.”

 

Shepard smiled.  “It sounds beautiful.  Did you ever go back?”

 

“No.  I...wanted to keep the memories as they were, even incomplete.  They are...special.”  Silence ruled for a bit.  “What about you, siha?  Do you have a happy memory from childhood to share?”

 

Her answer was so long in coming that Thane checked to see if she had fallen asleep, but the rise and fall of her chest was unchanged.

 

“Rallying the civilians in Elysium against the batarian pirates.  There was a little girl, maybe ten or twelve.  Some batarian slug was dragging her by her hair.  She was screaming for her daddy.  I put a bullet dead center between all four of the bastard’s eyes.  Not a single colonist was taken by a slaver.  I killed a lot of pirates that day, but I’ll never forget the look in her eyes when she realized the slaver was dead.  I got her back to the main colony base, and seeing her parents’ joy when they found her, thinking she was either dead or captured...”  She trailed off.  

 

Thane waited a long time, until it became clear that she was finished speaking.  “That’s not a childhood memory,” he said in a noncommittal voice.

 

“No.  It’s not.”

  
He wondered at her state of mind, so obviously different from his.  He could recollect any point in his life with perfect clarity, with only the earliest childhood memories slightly fuzzed, but most of his memories were overlaid with the calculating calm taught him from early childhood.  Her memories were cut short, belonging as if in a book, he recalled.  Only the more recent memories of death and battle stood out with any emotion to her.  He wondered which one of them was more crippled.

 

* * *

 

The past hour had gone quietly enough, with Thane watching and correcting her form.  The tension between them had settled back into a simmer that left neither one completely pleased, but they also couldn’t keep their hands off each other.  Thane frequently stood behind her, his hands on her wrists as he showed her again how her arms and hands should be placed.  Each time he stepped away, she turned her hand over to capture his wrist for just a moment before he pulled away.  By unspoken consent, they hadn’t kissed again, although it might be more that Thane wasn’t giving her a chance to get that close to him.  Their flirting was a delicious counterpoint to the repetition of the _takat_ , but eventually Shepard had had enough.    
  
“Please teach me the second one,” she wheedled for the umpteenth time to the assassin.  “I’ve done this one so many times that I’ll be doing it in my sleep tonight.”

 

With a tone that said even his famed patience might be wearing thin, he denied her again.  “When you can do it perfectly in the flesh, then I’ll teach you the second one.  There is no point in trying to cram them all in when you can’t even perform the first one.”

  
“If you don’t teach me, I’ll just make up one of my own,” she warned.

 

He looked affronted.  “That would be improper, siha.”

 

“Who’s going to know?”

 

“I will know.  And so will you.”

  
“Then teach me so I don’t make up an unsanctioned _takat_.”

  
“Shepard, it took me two months to perfect this form when I learned it.  You cannot move to the second one simply because you are bored.”

 

“I’m not six years old, Thane.  I think I’ve got this.”

 

“They build on each other, Shepard.  You need the skills from the first to perform the second, and so on.  And in truth, they are only meant to be the abstract performance of the sum total of skills taught for unarmed combat.  It will mean nothing to you without the rest of the foundation.”

 

“It’s only moves.”  He remained unconvinced.  Time to pull out the big guns.  “Look, I remember the one you did last night.”

 

A skeptical lift of his eyebrow ridge was her only answer.  His challenge couldn’t go unanswered, so she moved to the center of the open space and copied his opening stance from the previous evening.  She closed her eyes and conjured an image of him in Life Support.  She extended her arm while at the same time sweeping one leg out in front of her.  She had none of the strength and grace that he exhibited last night, but she did have the proper moves in the proper order.  There was a reason she was a brilliant soldier and leader, and it wasn’t just for her skills in wielding guns.  When she had finished the series, she opened her eyes to see him looking at her with an unreadable expression.

  
“You missed the jump on the thirtieth step,” he commented dryly.

 

“I didn’t want to fall on my butt,” she countered.  “Look, I’m not training to be an assassin.  I just want something different to practice.”

 

“In your Alliance training, did you learn pistols, shotguns and rifles on the same day?” he asked, trying to make his point.

 

Her smile turned smug.  “Actually, yes.  They want the cadets familiar enough with every single weapon to be able to use it and not blow their own hands off as soon as possible.  And, I qualified on all three on the first day.”  She rocked forward on her toes in delight at having cornered him.

 

He sighed, and Shepard knew she had won.  “Very well.  I will teach you in a, probably vain, attempt to keep you from scarring the memory of my training, but only the second _takat_ tonight.  Prove to me that you have the dedication to practice it diligently and get it right, and we may discuss further training tomorrow.  Or the day after that.”  

 

She grinned ear to ear.  “Ah, cheer up, Thane.  It’s good to challenge tradition every now and then.  Keeps things from getting stale.”

 

“Things are never boring around you, siha.”  He suddenly smiled and reached out to pull her close.  “For which I am eternally grateful.”  He dipped his lips to hers and kissed her thoroughly, although it was all too short.  “Now sit and watch me with that nimble mind of yours and learn.”

 

* * *

 

  
It was nearing dinner time on the Normandy.  Thane had retired to Life Support after Shepard had reluctantly admitted that she was too exhausted to continue any more.  She had relaxed in the shower, enjoying the stinging beat of hot water prickling against her skin.  Afterward, she studied her reflection in the mirror.  The scars on her face were definitely fading.  The same for her arms and legs.  Looking closer in the mirror, she could still see the cybernetics in her eyes.  She sighed.  Miranda had told her there was nothing to be done about that.  Eye tissue was too sensitive to survive the trauma she’d been through, and Miranda had rebuilt her eyes from a combination of cloned tissue and cybernetics.  At least she’d gotten the color correct.  

 

She stepped back and toweled her hair dry.  She was starting to feel human again.  More than that, she was starting to feel alive, and she knew exactly who to thank for that.  Whistling a happy, off-key tune, she wrapped the towel around herself and stepped out to get dressed.  She might even be able to make it downstairs for dinner tonight.  She stopped short in the doorway at the sight of the salarian scientist setting up shop on her office desk.

 

“Mordin!” she yelled.  “What the hell are you doing here?  EDI, you’ve got to stop letting people in to my cabin.”

 

They replied simultaneously.  “Your door was not locked, Shepard, and you had not given me instructions to notify you if anyone came in unless your door is locked.”  “Wanted to perform follow-up inspection of motor faculties, Shepard.  Better done without Cerberus operative in the way.”

 

“EDI...never mind.  Next time I’ll remember to lock the door.”  She tugged her towel tighter around her.  “And Mordin, you could have asked me to come down to your lab.  Why don’t you let me get dressed and I’ll be down in a few minutes...”

 

“Waste of time, Shepard.  Brought scanner with me. Only take a moment.”

  
“I’m not dressed!”

 

“Doctor patient confidentiality, Shepard.  Besides, already familiar with human anatomy.  Keep your towel,” he said as he pulled a scanner and scalp net out of his bag.  “Sit down.”

 

Feeling like she was in one of those weird dreams where she’d end up naked in school, she allowed Mordin to chivvy her into her desk chair.  He fitted the scalp net with a delicate touch and ran the scanner down her arm.  “Only take a moment.  Operative Lawson too caught up in details.  Only need half the data points she wanted to confirm success of final stage of Project Lazarus.”

 

“Uh huh,” she muttered as she kept her other hand tight on her towel and reminded herself again that a shipful of geniuses also translated into a shipful of people who didn’t conform to societal norms.

 

“Had something else to discuss with you, Shepard.  Noticed your growing attachment to Thane.  Human-drell liaisons complex.  Thane complex as well.”

 

She was definitely in a dream.  Might as well go with it.  “Believe me, I’ve noticed he’s complex.”  He was an excellent kisser as well, but she decided to keep that part to herself.

 

“Can provide advice if needed, compatibilities, comfortable positions, erogenous zones for both parties.”

 

Shepard could feel her face turning bright red.  It was like her mother’s talk all over again, given several years too late.  She wanted to bury her face in her hands, but with one hand captive in Mordin’s scanner and the other keeping a death grip on her towel, she didn’t have any to spare.

 

“Should be aware, drell saliva can produce slight hallucinogenic experience for some humans.  Also, prolonged skin to skin contact can cause rash on humans.  Can provide creams if necessary.”  

 

Maybe she could pinch herself and wake up.  She tried it and winced.  Maybe it wasn’t a dream, which would make this very embarrassing.  Nope, she was going to keep treating it like a dream.  Easier that way.  “Um, any problems for Thane I should be aware of.”

 

“Already discussed it with him.  Warned him to beware of human tendency to scratch, could dislodge scales.  Nothing major.”

 

Oh God, he’d already talked to Thane about sex with her?  Her mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out.

 

The professor ignored her in favor of studying his machine.  “Ah, interesting readings.”

 

Maybe she could distract him from her relationship with Thane.  “My tau ceti coefficient whatever is looking good?” she asked.

 

“No.  Was referring to the amount of neural activity in your brain that fired when thinking of Thane.”

 

_Oh good lord_ , she thought.  “Mordin, if you waited to ask me about Thane until I was hooked up to this thing just so you could peek in my brain, I’ll...I’ll lock you out of your lab for twenty four hours,” she threatened.

 

He ignored her threat, although she thought he was looking slyly pleased with himself.  “Serendipitous occurrence, Commander.  Simply verified field observations.  Also, neural integration occurring within expected limits.  Can revise prognosis for full recovery down to maximum of fourteen days.”  He started disentangling the scalp net from her damp hair.  He continued in a kinder tone.  “Shepard, good to have something to fight for, to live for.  No children myself.  Have nephew, very bright, expect great things from him.  He’s my reason for fighting.  Saving the galaxy too grand, too abstract to provide true focus.  Find something... someone... personal.  Will forward pamphlets and instructional vids to you through EDI.  Time to scan your cabin for bugs.”  By now Shepard was used to Mordin switching lines of thought three times in ten seconds.  

 

She watched Mordin absently as he scanned her cabin and then left without any further acknowledgement.  Spinning around in her chair, she picked up her holo with her crew members and ran her fingers over each image.  They were her family.  Mordin was right.  Saving the galaxy was too big and too hard to take on, but she could save her family.  Her fingers lingered over the little bit of Thane that was visible in the picture.  Maybe, just maybe, she could dare to hope for more than just survival.

 

* * *

 

A/N: Thank you to Orchidellia on ff dot net, my beta reader!


	20. Open Your Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kolyat gets an offer he can't refuse. Shepard and Garrus discuss the events around Alchera.

Kolyat was stretched out on the couch flipping through the entertainment channels when his door chimed.  Frowning, he grabbed a tshirt to cover his torso as he went to answer the door.  He struggled to keep a scowl on his face when he opened it to see Hama, but an errant steak of happiness kept trying to slip through.  “What do you want?”

 

She wrinkled her nose as she stepped into his micro apartment.  “Well nice to see you, too, Kolyat.  I’m fine, so kind of you to ask.  How about you?  I see you are your normal cheerful sunny self this evening.”  She tapped his chest as she continued.  “Very nice, if you’re going for the casual-stay-at-home-look, but you and I have a date tonight, so I would appreciate it if you changed into something a little nicer and a little less I’m-headed-to-bed, thank you very much.”

 

Kolyat hated the feeling that she always gave him when she was like this, like she was three steps ahead and he was constantly running to catch up.  “What date? We don’t have a date,” he grumbled.  

 

“We do now,” she smiled at him.  “That’s what I came by to tell you.  Sorry I didn’t have a chance to tell you earlier, but it just came up.  Now come and get changed.  We’re headed to the Presidium, so find something nice that isn’t a uniform.  I’ll wait.”  With that, she sank onto the sofa and appropriated his remote.  When he stood there staring at her, she waved him toward the back of the apartment without looking away from the vid.  “Go on.  We haven’t got all night.”

 

“I suppose you’re not leaving without me?”

 

“Nope,” she replied far too chipper for Kolyat’s liking.  

 

“Fine, but you’re buying dinner,” he groused as he looked for something that was clean and suitable.  

 

“We’re eating at my place,” she answered.

 

Kolyat rolled his eyes as he headed into the fresher to change.  “Why me?” he muttered to himself.

 

Thirty minutes later, he found himself slightly mollified by the delicious scent of dinner as they entered Hama’s apartment.  “Roasted _lafar_ with _dail_ salad,” Milar told him as they stepped into the kitchen.

 

“Did you make this?” Kolyat asked, sniffing appreciatively.  “I haven’t smelled anything this good since my aunt’s cooking back on Kahje.”

 

Milar chuckled as she responded.  “No. I rarely have time to cook myself, but I do employ a very talented chef.  One of the perks of the job.  Now, come, let’s eat while I tell you why I asked Hama to bring you here tonight.”

 

Dinner was accompanied by a very nice, and Kolyat suspected a very expensive, wine from Kahje.  Over dinner, Milar explained more of the current events on Kahje and the Citadel, and how the two were affecting each other.  Most of it, Kolyat had already puzzled out on his own, but she gave him some new perspectives that he hadn’t considered.  

 

“Shepard is only the spark to a fire that’s been simmering on Kahje for the past three decades,” she said.  “I believe we’re very close to a civil war, Kolyat, and the hanar ambassador agrees with me.  Poourdmet and his ring acting so antagonistically at the party only solidified our beliefs.  They wouldn’t be so confident if they weren’t close to making a move of some sort.  The only problem is that they’re very crafty.  Neither the ambassador nor I have been able to find any evidence linking them to the troubles on Kahje.  That’s where you come in, Kolyat.”

 

The younger drell almost choked on his wine.  “Me?” he asked after he cleared his throat.  “What can I do?  If you haven’t found anything, what makes you think I can?  Hama’s much better than me at cracking electronic surveillance.”  He noticed that neither Hama nor her mother seemed upset at his observation.  Interesting.  Milar must be aware of her daughter’s illicit activities, and what’s more, seemed to approve of them.

 

“You are the youngest and least senior of our security staff.  That’s precisely what makes you valuable to me, Kolyat.”  When he frowned in confusion, she continued.  “You have a unique story.  The details are only known to a few, but most assume that you are here solely because of your father’s influence.  You don’t have the network of connections that the rest of the security staff do.  You also haven’t gone out of your way to make friends with them.  Your reputation is that of a surly loner who fell into a job he didn’t really deserve,” she added crisply.  Kolyat shifted uncomfortably in his chair at her blunt assessment of his personality.

 

“However, you have cultivated a relationship with my daughter.  Not surprising, considering your relative ages and the lack of suitable companionship on the Citadel.  Fortunately, it gives you an excuse to visit our apartment on a regular basis, whereas I would have no reason otherwise to have any contact with our newest security officer.  So I expect you two to keep up appearances.”  Hama flashed him a saucy grin that made Kolyat shrink even further into his seat.

 

Milar leaned forward as she continued.  “Here’s where I need you, Kolyat.  You can follow Poourdmet and his companions on your off hours.  Hama will feed you as much information as she can gather about his activities, and the two of you will work together to find out what he’s up to.  It’s too bad I can’t legitimately have you trained in stealth techniques and unfortunately, your father is off with Shepard.  Hama has a natural instinct for it, but I doubt she’ll be much of a teacher.”  Hama frowned and was about to interrupt her mother, but Milar held out a hand to keep her quiet.  “Let her teach you what she can.  As for the rest, you’ll simply have to be very careful.  Now, you can’t do this on your work time, obviously, and I can’t give you a raise, since that would smack of favoritism.  But I can pay you for your time working for me.  It’s only fair, and I’m sure you could use the extra money.  So, do you accept?”

 

Kolyat’s head was spinning with the sudden influx of information and potential outcomes.  There was one option she hadn’t addressed, though.  “What if I say no?”

 

“Nothing,” she responded.  “You forget this conversation ever happened, and you continue as the lowest ranking security officer in our staff, doing the grunt work that nobody else wants to do.  You serve out your term of three years, then you can do whatever you want.”  She paused and looked him up and down.  “What do you want to do, Kolyat?  Will you take the safe road?  Or will you help me do my job and protect the interests of the drell?”

 

Kolyat felt as if his life were being upended.  He had a sudden flashback to his childhood, a rare sunny day visiting the beach.   _Caught in a riptide, panicking as the shore disappears from sight, crying out for help.  Strong arms catch me and hold me tight.  Hold on to my neck, Kolyat, he says, as he swims strongly out of the current and back to shore._  He caught himself abruptly and looked up to see if he had spoken his memory aloud.  They were both looking at him, but as if they were awaiting his answer.  The safety of his known world was slipping away again, and this time his father wouldn’t be there to save him.  That was alright, though.  He was ready to stand on his own.  

 

“You knew my answer before you asked, didn’t you?”

 

Milar smiled.  “I hoped I did.  One can never predict another’s actions perfectly.  Hama is convinced you would accept.”

 

He glanced at the young drell.  For once, her smile was sincere.  “Please, Kolyat.  I can’t do it on my own, and I know you want to help people.  It’s what you told me the night of the party.”

 

“You’re right.  I want to help,” he told them both.  “Whatever you need, Sera.”

 

She smiled and raised her glass in a toast.  “Here’s to a successful covert partnership.  My favorite kind.”

 

He toasted her back and wondered exactly what he had gotten himself into.

 

* * *

 

Miranda sat in her office, lost in thought.  She had just returned from Pragia, where Shepard had ordered her to assist Jack in blowing up the facility where Cerberus had trained and enhanced her biotic powers.   No, Miranda admitted in the privacy of her own mind.  It was where Cerberus had experimented and tortured a young girl until they had produced an exceptionally strong human biotic.  

 

It had been a long time since anything had affected her so profoundly.  It was one thing to consider Pragia and its associated activities in the abstract.  It was very different being confronted with the toll face to face.  “Keep an open mind,” Shepard had ordered before they left for the mission.  Seeing the logs, hearing the raw misery underlying the fury in Jack’s voice as she relived her days as Subject Zero prickled her conscience.  She could legitimately say that she had nothing to do with it, never having been associated with that particular cell.  In this case, however, Shepard was right.  Cerberus had gone too far.  Surely there had to have been another way to get those results.  Her data terminal beeped, interrupting her thoughts.  Absently, she pulled a disk out and pocketed it as she stood and walked out.  She steeled herself for the conversation she needed to have as she headed for the elevator.

 

She ignored the quarian as she headed down the steps into Jack’s den.  It was the first time she’d been here in person, although she’d seen the pictures from the cameras before Mordin found and disabled them all.  Not surprisingly, Jack had added to the graffiti.  In fact, she was painting something on the wall now, Miranda saw.  “Jack, I’d like to talk.  Please,” she added reluctantly.

 

“Unless you’ve come to apologize, we ain’t got nothin’ to talk about, cheerleader,” Jack told her without turning around.

 

“Actually, that’s exactly what I’ve come to do,” Miranda admitted.  

 

That shocked Jack into turning around, a paintbrush dipped in red hanging loosely from her fingers.  “Really?  What, did hell freeze over on the way back to the Normandy?”

 

“No.  Look, Jack...I...I...I really don’t know how to say this,” Miranda sighed.  

 

“It’s easy.  You say, ‘Gee, Jack, I’m so sorry for how Cerberus treated you all those years.  The Illusive Man is the biggest prick in the galaxy, and we’re gonna pay you a million credits in reparation.’  See?  It’s not hard,” she finished sarcastically, leaning against the wall.

 

“It’s not that easy, Jack.  Cerberus is the only good thing I ever knew in my life.  The Illusive Man was a better father to me than my biological father ever was, even if he never played that role.  You know we’re divided into cells. I only ever knew what was going on in my cell and the little bit that the Illusive Man shared with me.  I never knew anything about Pragia or the experiments going on there.  I swear it.”  Miranda found she couldn’t look at Jack and focused instead on the wall behind her.  She saw that Jack was in the middle of painting a giant explosion.

 

“Well excuse me for not caring that you grew up in a cushy little cell where you got everything you ever wanted,” Jack snapped.  “While you were being told you were perfect in every way, I was fighting for my life every day and killing kids my age just to get something to eat.  You saw those logs, Miranda!  You saw the hell they put me through!  It’s a fucking miracle I don’t kill you every single day I see you just because you’re part of Cerberus!” she yelled.

 

“I know, Jack.  I saw it.  And I am sorry.  Truly.  I could never have sanctioned what they did to you.”  

 

Her admission took the wind out of Jack’s outburst, and the smaller woman fell back against the wall.  “You are?”

 

“Yes, I am, Jack.  I can’t apologize for Cerberus or the Illusive Man, because I know he would do it again, but for what it’s worth, I can promise that I won’t be part of such experiments in the future.”

 

Jack considered that for a while, turning the brush around in her hand.  “He’s an evil son of a bitch.”

 

Miranda shook her head.  “Not evil.  Driven.  The ends justify the means.  He considers you one of Cerberus’ most important successes.  You have biotic strength equal to asari matriarchs.  You’re by far the strongest human biotic in history, and you’re helping Shepard fight the Collectors to save humanity.  From his point of view, everything worked out perfectly.  I’m sorry, I know it’s not what you want to hear, Jack.”

 

Jack turned back to the wall and started filling in her explosion.  “Yeah, well, I’d give it all up to be normal again.  You at least have a sister.  I don’t even know my real name.”

 

“Jennifer Roussel.  Your mother’s name is Danielle, and you have a younger sister.  Her name is Laura.  They live on Eden Prime.  Here’s everything I could find on you in Cerberus’ files.  You didn’t know where to look,” she explained without meeting Jack’s eyes as she put the disk on the table.

 

Jack whipped around and stared at Miranda in disbelief.  “My...mother?  A sister?”

 

“It’s all there,” she gestured to the tiny disk.  “And if you have any other questions, just ask.  I’ll tell you what I know.”  She turned to go.  

 

She was halfway up the steps when she heard a quiet, “Hey, cheerleader....”  Miranda paused for several seconds but no further words came.  She looked back to see Jack staring pensively at the data disc in her hand.  She sighed and continued up the stairs.  She had done all she could.  The rest was up to Jack.

 

* * *

 

 

Garrus entered Shepard’s cabin carrying two separate dinners.  He stopped at the top of the steps to watch in bemusement as Shepard finished her exercises.  She was dressed in loose shorts and a cut off t-shirt as she moved through one of the simpler series of movements Thane had taught her.  This one involved standing on one leg as she brought her knee up, extended her foot, then swept her entire leg in an arc behind her, finishing with a twist of her grounded foot to end up facing front again.  She was just trying to complete the twist when her balance gave way and she hopped awkwardly for a few steps before she came up against the fish tank for balance.  “Hey, Garrus,” she waved as she shook her leg out.

 

“Practicing for your next trip to the Dark Star?” he asked as he came in to set the food down on the coffee table.

 

“Heh.  Maybe.  At least this would give me some structure instead of waving my arms around like a lunatic.  Oh, this smells good,” she added as she walked over.  Spaghetti with meatballs and garlic cheese bread.  Gardner was working small miracles in the limited galley.  “Thanks for bringing it up.”

 

“No problem,” he told her as he settled in front of his meal.  

 

“Do I want to know what that is?” she asked, looking askance at a large hunk of something still attached to the bone swimming in a dark brown gravy.

 

“Let’s just leave it as a turian delicacy, shall we?” he drawled.

 

“Let’s,” she agreed quickly.  “So how did it go today?”  Garrus had led the mission to Pragia instead of her, since she was still on medical restrictions.

 

“Not bad,” he replied, easily shredding the meat apart with his talons, then delicately wiping them clean.  “If anything, Jack makes a better distraction than you do, with all the explosions she likes to cause.  She behaved herself surprisingly well, as long as you discount the various crude epithets, constant cursing, and occasional destruction of already derelict equipment.”

 

“For Jack, that’s almost like being on her best behavior,” Shepard joked as she bit down on her garlic bread.  “Mmmm. I wish you could try this, Garrus.  Delicious.”

 

He clamped his mandibles tight against his jaw and pulled back slightly.  “Don’t get me started, Shepard.  Pulverized burnt grains?  What do you think turians are?  Cowboys?”

 

“I think you mean cows.”

 

“No, cowboy.  I’m a boy, and you want me to be a cow.”

 

“Male.  And male cows are bulls, and why the hell are we talking about this anyway?”  She caught the twinkle in Garrus’ eye.  “You bastard,” she said without heat and speared a meatball.  “Anyway,” she drawled out, “you think this little expedition did anything to calm Jack’s demons?”

 

He shrugged.  “Maybe?  Some demons are pretty damn hard to exorcise.  I think we both know that from experience.”  

 

“Yeah.  Yeah, we do.”  They ate in silence for a few moments, each lost in thought.  

 

“So, seriously, what were you doing when I came in,” the turian asked.  “Practicing your dance moves in private so you can go clubbing without Joker laughing at you?”

 

“He’s lucky he’s fragile, that’s all I can say for Joker.  No, I was working on my rehab.  Movements to reintegrate the muscular and nervous system, or something like that.”

 

“How’s it coming?” he asked.  “Not recovering as fast as Miranda promised?”

 

Shepard shrugged and scowled at her plate.  “According to Miranda, everything is roses and puppy dogs, but she’s not me.  I still feel like some sort of obscene science experiment lumbering around with her watching my every move.  Thank God for Mordin finding all those damn cameras she had installed in here.  Christ, that was creepy.  I still have him come up here every few days to scan for them, but she hasn’t tried to put any up for a couple months now.”  She shuddered in disgust.  

 

“The Professor’s a good guy.  Glad we have him on our team.  You never did answer my question, though.  How long until you’re back in the game?” he prodded.

 

She shrugged again, then stood up, taking an extra moment to catch her balance.  “Let me show you something.”  She walked over to the mini bar and pulled out two bottles.  She held out her right arm with the half-full bottle in it.  Within ten seconds, her hand started to tremble.  In fifteen, the liquor in the bottle was sloshing around alarmingly, causing Garrus to leap up and take it from her.  “Hey, careful.  That’s the good turian whiskey I picked up last time we were at the Citadel.  Wave your own liquor around if you want to prove a point,” he groused as he went to get a couple of glasses for them.

 

“Miranda keeps telling me to be patient.  You ever known me to be patient, Garrus?”  A disbelieving snort was her only answer.  “Yeah, exactly.”  She huffed out her breath as she fell back onto the couch next to Garrus and poured herself a shot.  This was a new favorite of hers, a rum made from a sugar cane adapted to Eden Prime.  It was dark, thick, and had a spicy bite that reminded her pleasantly of Thane’s kisses.  She tossed it back and let it linger on her tongue, feeling it burn pleasantly all the way down into her stomach.  “Three days since the operation.  Mordin says it’ll be less than fourteen days to be back to normal.”

 

“What’s on the schedule, then?  You about ready to go get that Reaper IFF the Illusive Man told us about?”

 

She cradled her shot glass in her hand, staring into its black depths.  “Not quite. I want to make sure I’m one hundred percent for that.  After his last little mission that turned out to be a trap, my gut is telling me that this one will be hairy.  No, there are a couple of other things I need to do.  I got a message from Admiral Hackett the other day.  They found the crash site on Alchera.”  Garrus stilled.  “He wants me to retrieve the dog tags and set up a monument to the fallen.”

 

“What did you say?” he asked carefully.

 

“What could I say?  I told him yes.  We’re rendezvousing with the _Bengal Bay_ to pick up the monument then heading to Alchera.”  

 

“Why you?  He could send a different ship.”

 

She shook her head, cutting him off.  “It’s in the Terminus Systems.  Alliance doesn’t want to send any ships there right now.  Politics.”  That one word was infused with all the disdain she could muster.  

 

Garrus flicked his fingers in a turian insult.  One of the reasons they’d always gotten along so well was their mutual impatience and disregard of politics and hierarchy rules.  “So?  That still doesn’t mean you have to be the one to do it.”

 

Shepard downed her second shot and enjoyed the way it burned in her stomach.  She set her glass down and gestured for Garrus to fill it up again.  “Yeah, I do.  I owe it to them.  I was their Commander, and I failed them.”

 

“No, Shepard, it wasn’t you.  The Collectors got the drop on us.”  When she started to argue, he cut her off.  “Are you going to blame Joker because he didn’t manage to evade fire?” he asked harshly.

 

She started to answer no, then stopped and thought.  She had never blamed Joker, even though he was piloting at the time.  She never even blamed him for the fact that he refused to leave his station.  She knew him well enough.  The Normandy had been his baby and his only true love.  He would have done anything to save her, and that’s what he was trying to do when Shepard hauled him away from the consoles.  He refused to accept she was a lost cause, and yet Shepard didn’t blame him for losing the Normandy.  So why did she hold herself responsible for her crew’s deaths?

 

Garrus filled both their glasses.  “Well?” he prodded.

 

“No,” she answered, drawing out the word.  “But that’s different.  He was doing his job.  I was the Commander.  Ultimate responsibility always falls back to me.  Didn’t you feel the same way on Omega, Garrus?”  Now it was his turn to wince and down his drink.  “Was it your fault your team died?” she continued.  

 

He growled as he filled his glass again.  “Spirits, Shepard!  Leave that alone!  There are days I still regret not planting a bullet in Sidonis’ skull, so just lay off.”  

 

“Yeah, well, that’s how I feel, so there’s your answer.  I’m going to Alchera.  End of story.”  She downed her glass again, trying to bury the fear and despair that were threatening to rise up.  “Hit me again,” she ordered.    
  
“Gonna be one of those nights again?” he asked as he complied, referring to their early days on the SR2.

 

“Looks like.  You got anything better to do?  More calibrations?”

 

“Oh, it still needs daily checks, but the cannon’s ready.  I don’t have anything going on, but I thought you might.”

 

Shepard was starting to relax into the warm glow of the rum.  She filled her glass again, but held it contemplatively in front of her.  Now that she had a decent buzz going, she could slow down a little bit.  She wanted to make this bottle last for a while.  No telling when she could get another one.  “Like what?  I don’t wanna exercise any more tonight, and I’m hardly decent company for anyone other than you.”

 

“I’m not sure that’s the compliment you think it is, Shepard,” he said dryly as he filled his own glass.  They were always trying to keep up with the other one, matching shot for shot.  It had led to some epic benders for both of them in the early days after she picked him up from Omega as they both tried to drown their demons.  He continued, “I was surprised when you invited me up for dinner.  Lately, you’ve been spending most of your evenings with the assassin.”

 

Shepard felt her cheeks heat up in a sudden rush.  To cover it up, she finished her drink.  “Yeah.  We discuss philosophy.”  

 

“Um hm,” was his only response.

 

“It’s true!” she insisted.  “We talk about the differences between human, asari and drell philosophers.  And religion.  We talk about that a lot,” she added.

 

“You know, I dated a human once.  She talked about religion, too.  She kept shouting ‘oh god, oh god,’ over and over again.”

 

“Oh my god, Garrus!  I’m never going to be able to...without thinking...Ack!”  Now her cheeks were scarlet and she turned to her bottle to cover it up.  “I did _not_ need to know that,” she told him firmly.

 

“See, humans have such funny ideas about religion and sex.  You’ll never catch a turian discussing religion or philosophy during sex.”

 

“We’re not having sex, Garrus!”   _Yet_ , she amended to herself.

 

“I didn’t ask, Shepard.  Interesting to know, though.  Means I can collect my credits from Joker.”

 

“What?”

 

“You know how small ships gossip, Shepard.  There’s a betting pool on just about everything.  And with you spending just about every evening in Life Support...well, what did you expect would happen.”  She stared at him in disbelief.  “Well, you know that according to the betting pool, I was a highly ranked candidate for your affections for a couple of months, at least until you recruited Thane.  I think it was all our nights drinking.”  He looked far too smug for her liking.

 

Shepard dropped her head into her hands.  “Oh my god,” she mumbled.  “That is why I try to stay away from ship’s gossip.  It’s never good for the one in charge.  They either hate you or get way too involved in your personal life.”

 

“Be glad it’s the latter.  You’ve done a good job building them into a team.  We’ve got your back, Shepard, no matter what.”

 

“Thanks, Garr,” she said, smiling and bumping her shoulder against his affectionately.  “You’ll never know how much that means to me.”  They sat companionably for a while, each lost in their own thoughts while her radio played soft jazz in the background.  

 

Eventually, Garrus broke the silence.  “So, about Thane...”

 

“Oh my god, Garrus, give it a break, will you?”  

 

“I worry about you.  Look at us, sitting here, getting blind drunk just at the thought of Alchera.  I know you haven’t forgotten about Kaidan.”  He forged on, ignoring her warning growl.  “Are you sure you know what you’re getting into with Thane?”

 

Shepard hung her head and refused to look at her best friend.  “I can’t help it.  He’s become as close and dear to me as you, just in a different way.  He steadies me and supports me, so deeply I can hardly fathom it.  I can talk to him about anything.  We...connect.  I can’t explain it, other than to say I feel like I met my soul mate.”  She paused and looked up at his bright avian eyes.  “I love him, Garrus.  It makes what I felt for Kaidan feel like a schoolgirl crush.  I can’t help it, and I don’t care,” she finished defiantly.

 

He sighed.  “Ah, spirits.  You never do anything halfway, do you?  You couldn’t have fallen for the hanar who plays Blasto?  Or the sexy turian with the enormous cannon?  You had to go and fall for the assassin with a terminal disease?”

 

“It’s not like any of us has a guaranteed life expectancy, Garrus,” she muttered.

  
“No, but the odds are better for some than others.”  When she started to argue with him, he cut her off.  “I’m not asking you to stop, Shepard.  I wouldn’t presume to tell you what to do with your personal life.  Just...well, I guess I want you to enjoy what time you can.  And if you ever need a shoulder to cry on, you know where I bunk.”

 

Thane’s death, as well as their impending suicide mission, hung like a cloud over her head.  She knew she was living in a state of denial, but sometimes, it was the only way she could get through the day.  A marine who focused overly much on their potential death was soon truly dead.  The same was true with her squad mates.  Any of them could bite a bullet on the next mission, but you couldn’t focus on that.  Live for the moment was the motto of every marine.

 

“Thanks, Garrus.  What would I do without you?”

 

“You’d be a sad, lonely drunk, Shepard.”

 

She laughed and lifted her glass to him. “Here’s to companions in drink, then.  Cheers.”

 

“Cheers.”

 

* * *

 

A/N: Thank you to Orchidellia at ff dot net, my beta reader!

  
And if anyone is either a) curious, or b) a fan of dark rum, the one that Shepard likes is based off Cruzan’s Black Strap Rum.


	21. Alchera

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard searches the SR1 crash site for her fallen comrades dog tags.

 

 

Shepard looked at the galaxy map from her post at the top of CIC.  Multiple systems flashed, and she could pull up the tags associated with each one.  Each flashing star system represented hope, although it usually came with a price.  So far, they’d been lucky, and the price had been low.  Injuries, close calls, but no casualties.  She didn’t know how much longer their luck would hold out.

 

Currently, the Normandy was cruising in the Shrike Abyssal, having just finished a survey mission for the critical resources needed to outfit the frigate with the upgrades her crew had suggested.  She allowed herself a small smile thinking about her crew.  Mercenaries, vigilantes, terrorists, assassins.  Hell, even the asari justicar could be considered a ruthless force of destruction in spite of, or maybe because of, her rigid adherence to a strict Code of ethics and laws.  Shepard spotted the note referring to Kasumi’s request to steal back her partner’s graybox and made a mental note not to include Samara on that mission.  She needed someone a little more...flexible in their thinking for that mission.

 

Her gaze went to the Amada system with its blinking ring and notes.  There was no reason to delay the jump any longer.  She suppressed a sigh, but only just.  Kelly’s hearing was good, and the crew counselor was standing only a few feet away.

 

Kelly was a good kid, a little overly cheerful, and far too inclined to pry into anyone’s private business if she thought she could help them reach closure, or make peace with the past, or whatever nonsense counselors were always spewing.  She seemed young to have a counselor’s license, but Shepard had already learned that the Illusive Man had given her the best people and equipment money could buy, so she had no doubt that Kelly was superb at her job.  Shepard hadn’t had much experience with counselors in her life, and she didn’t intend to start now.  Unfortunately, since this was a Cerberus ship, she didn’t have veto power over the crew, only over the specialists she was recruiting.

 

“Joker, set a course to Amada.  We have unfinished business at Alchera.”

 

“Aye, Commander.”  Joker’s usually acerbic voice was somber.  Normandy had been orbiting above Alchera, a low grav, low pressure icebox of a planet when it had come under attack by a Collector vessel.  The Collector’s devastating beam weapon had completely overpowered the SR1’s shields, slicing right through the hull in CIC and crippling one of the main engines.  The suddenness of the attack took everyone by surprise.  

 

Even now, Shepard felt a chill run down her spine as she remembered stepping out into the silent vacuum of the ruined CIC.  “Like someone walking over your grave.”

 

“Did you say something, Commander?”  Kelly’s face had innocent concern written all over it, and suddenly Shepard couldn’t stand to be here any longer, standing at the console of the new Normandy SR2.  It was too familiar, and too different at the same time.  These weren’t Alliance navy manning the station; the posts were filled by Cerberus operatives.  She wasn’t Alliance anymore.  She was...Shepard frowned and considered.  Not Alliance, still Spectre, probably Cerberus.  

 

Shepard stepped down from the galaxy map and headed toward the elevator without answering Kelly.  Not that it mattered.  Kelly knew exactly why they were headed to Alchera.

 

Shepard harbored no illusions that she had any privacy aboard the Normandy.  Cerberus ship, Cerberus crew, Cerberus AI monitoring every transmission.  Even two of her top specialists were Cerberus operatives first and foremost.  Miranda Lawson, genetically perfect genius, had spent the last two years of her life learning everything possible about one Commander Shepard.  Jacob Taylor was supposed to be her right arm, another perfect example of humanity in a Cerberus uniform, except that he was another thing that was too familiar and too different.  Former Alliance, now Cerberus.  It was uncomfortably like looking in a mirror.  Hell, even her uniforms now had the Cerberus logo on them.  Everything except her replacement N7 armor.  She had made a point of keeping that, but now she wondered if it was worth it.  The Alliance couldn’t make up its mind if it should claim her or not.  Dead or not dead?  Decorated N7 hero or terrorist?

 

She stood ramrod straight waiting for the elevator doors to open. It wasn’t until they closed behind her and the lift headed up to her cabin that she slumped against the wall.  More than once, she contemplated ripping the Cerberus badge off her uniform, but dammit, for all intents and purposes, she _was_ Cerberus now.  They were the only ones who took the Reaper threat seriously.  The human Alliance and the galactic Council refused to listen to her warnings.  They had so little time left, and she didn’t intend to waste it playing Cassandra to those who wouldn’t listen.  So she worked for Cerberus and the Illusive Man.

 

Sometimes, like today, it made her skin crawl.  She remembered the horrific experiments by Cerberus that she had busted in her hunt for Saren two years ago.  Experiments that involved creating the perfect shock troops or experimenting on lost souls.  She had a perfect example of one of those lost souls wallowing underneath Engineering right now.  Jack had been a baby stolen from her parents simply because she showed enormous biotic potential.  Cerberus had tortured her for years, tearing her down physically and emotionally, trying to find a breakthrough to increase her already formidable biotic power.  Against all the odds, they had succeeded.  That didn’t make it right, though.

 

Did it?  A betraying whisper in the back of her mind wouldn’t be shut out.  Shepard had been guilty of using the ends to justify the means plenty of times in her life as Miranda had pointed out in the past.  Miranda had also defended those operations as either rogue or unmonitored that had gotten out of hand.  There was no proof, one way or another.  Either Miranda was telling the truth and Cerberus wasn’t a terrorist organization as portrayed by the Alliance, or she couldn’t trust the woman who had brought her back from the dead and she really was working for the devil.

 

The elevator doors slid open and Shepard shrugged her shoulders.   She entered her cabin with a weary tread and pulled out her hardsuit.  Time to go to Alchera.

 

Time to pay her respects to the twenty men and women who perished in its orbit.

  
Time to face the fact that she was one of those who died over Alchera.

  

* * *

 

 

“Commander, I’m ready.”  The tall turian leaned against the shuttle door in his unmistakable blue armor, sniper rifle poking up over his shoulder.

 

“Garrus, if I’d wanted you to come with me, I’d have told you.  You’re not going.”

 

There was a flash in his deep-set eyes, and his mandibles tightened.  “You can’t go down there alone.  What if you run into looters?  Mercs?”

 

“EDI already checked.  The planet’s cold.  No detectable life signs or heat signatures anywhere around the crash site.  It’s safe.”

 

“Oh yeah?  You can’t even go into a bar without someone trying to kill you.”

 

“That was Omega.  If someone doesn’t try to kill you once a day, it’s a slow day.”  Her own features tightened as she remembered the gut wrenching pain from the poisoned drink the batarian bartender gave her.  If it hadn’t been for Cerberus’ implants, she probably wouldn’t have survived.  It had been Garrus who’d dragged her back to the Normandy as she convulsed and vomited all over him.

 

“I’m going.  You need someone to watch your back.”  The turian straightened up and stood between her and the shuttle door.

 

“Garrus, this is an Alliance mission...”

 

“Cut the crap, Shepard.  Since when do you take orders from the Alliance?”  Garrus overrode her explanation.  “I think dying gets you out of the service, no matter what race you belong to.”

 

“Garrus.”  Her tone warned the turian he was getting dangerously close to the limits of insubordination, even given the wide latitude she normally allowed him.  “It’s not an order.  It’s a request from an Admiral.  The Alliance isn’t willing to send an individual ship across the Traverse, and if they sent a fleet, it would be an act of war.  The Normandy is the only one with the stealth and the firepower to safely travel this part of the galaxy.”  Her voice dropped.  “Besides, like I told you the other night, I owe it to them.  To my crew.”

 

His shoulders relaxed a little, and he stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder.  “Hey, I was there.  Remember?  Overwhelming odds.  No one could have predicted that ship, and there was no way we could have faced it head on.  You did the right thing.  You gave the order to abandon ship and saved most of the crew.  We might have all been dead if you’d acted differently.  And speaking for myself, I think my odds of coming back from the dead are pretty damned low,” he finished with a lazy drawl.  “Unlike a certain hero.”

 

“Hero, Garrus?  You and I both know we just did what had to be done.  Looking back, it sounds fantastic, but at the time, we were just running and chasing Saren.”

 

“Hero,” he confirmed.  “I distinctly remember the word hero being used in all the vids and books about you.  ‘Savior of the Citadel.’  ‘The best example of humanity.’  You know how politicians like to talk.”

 

“I hope you got your own share of accolades. I couldn’t have done it without you.  Without everyone.”  She smiled and reached out her hand to grasp his shoulder.  Friend to friend, momentarily leaving the commander behind.

 

Garrus laughed once.  “Of course, with lots of lengthy speeches about how I’d served the Hierarchy and would inspire future generations to dedicate themselves heart and soul to the turian cause.  Even got a medal, the Silver Hand of Veraes.”

 

“That’s great, Garrus.  Glad to see they finally recognized how important you are.” A little bit of the soul-crushing weight had lifted, but she couldn’t put off the inevitable any longer.  “But you’re still not coming.”  She lifted a hand and stopped him before he could speak.  “I appreciate it.  I do.  But I just have to do this by myself.”

 

He was silent for a moment, his normal cockiness gone.  “They were my crewmates, too, Shepard.”  He stared straight at her, daring her to deny his claim.

 

Something twisted inside her gut.  He was right.  He was as much part of her crew as any of those they’d lost.  She’d pulled him out of C-sec as soon as she’d been appointed Spectre and started hunting Saren.  He’d been with her every step of the way.  Feros, Novaria, Ilos.  Garrus and his sniper rifle, keeping her safe, evening the terrible odds so that they had a chance.  At her side when they fought against that hideous travesty that used to be Saren.  She would never forget his smile of relief when she crawled out from the rubble after Sovereign had been destroyed.  And now, two years later, he’d vowed to walk into hell by her side.  

 

“Alright, get in,” she told him.  His mandibles twitched in a grim smile as he ducked into the shuttle.  They seated themselves as the shuttle slid out through the kinetic barriers and headed down to the frozen wasteland of a damned world.

 

* * *

 

Snow glittered brightly everywhere.  Overhead, Amada was a small pinprick that cast a wan yellow light.  Alchera was the core of a failed gas giant.  It had water ice, but its atmosphere was predominantly methane and ammonia.  Shepard allowed herself one deep breath, then forced a calm over her body.  It was almost as if she were gearing up for battle.  She needed that calm.  She had a limited supply of oxygen in her suit, and allowing herself to get upset would only waste her air.  

 

There was a small hill to the side, and she jumped up the five feet to the top.  The Normandy SR-1 wreckage was spread across a wide swath of the landscape in front of her.  The biggest section of the wrecked ship was to her right.  It was tilting into a deep chasm, but it looked steady enough for now.  The chasm was only a couple of hundred feet deep, and the ship section looked firmly wedged against the far cliff.  In front of her, she could make out another large section.  It looked like the dome over the CIC and pilot’s section, although it was so crumpled that she wasn’t sure.  

 

Garrus made a similar jump and landed delicately beside her to survey the landscape.  “Damn Collectors.”  He turned to look at her.  “How you doing, Shepard?”

 

She touched the button to opaque her helmet against the sun.  She didn’t need it, but it would keep Garrus from being able to see every emotion that flitted across her face.  “I’m fine, Garrus.  Let’s just concentrate on the mission.”

 

Shepard activated her suit camera and panned around again to get a sense of the landscape.  There was a light wind stirring the thin layer of snow.  It wasn’t strong enough to be felt through her hardsuit, but she could imagine it whispering over her skin nonetheless.  

 

Shepard brought up her omni-tool and activated the Alliance scanning program.  Every Alliance soldier’s dogtags had a chip built in for just this sort of macabre disaster, where they might have to be recovered in hostile territory.  The omni-tool hummed for a moment, then projected a map populated with tiny dots.  Shepard sighed.  The dots were scattered far and wide across the frozen landscape.  Not that she expected anything else.  The Normandy had been cut into pieces even before it had fallen to its death on Alchera.  She didn’t see how it had held together as well as it had.  She tried not to apply the same thought to herself.

 

She shared the data to Garrus’ omni-tool and gestured to the closest dot.  She had her low-grav legs now and bounced across the rock and snow until she was on the dot.  She started shifting some crates, the low gravity and her cybernetically enhanced muscles tossing them a good twenty feet away.  Garrus was right behind her and started helping.

 

The sudden sight of a charred blue uniform brought a gasp to her lips and her hands stopped for a moment.  Ever so carefully now, she moved the last two crates off the body.  Her legs failed her, and she sank to her knees next to the body.  The cold from Alchera seemed to soak down to her bones, and an uncontrollable shiver started in her hands.

 

 _“Just meat and tubes on a table.”_  Jacob’s words rang in her head, over and over, pushing out any other thought.  Shepard felt her gorge rise and that immediately brought her back to her senses.  You did not vomit in a space suit.  Ever.  She bent over, letting her helmet almost touch her knees as she fought to get control of her breathing.  It was fast and reedy.  

 

She braved another glance at the mangled body that she knew had to resemble her own when Cerberus had recovered it.   _No, no.  I was in a hard suit. I had more protection than she did.  It couldn’t have been that bad.  It couldn’t.  It couldn’t._  She clenched her hands hard, but the suit gloves prevented her from digging her fingernails into her palms. At that moment, she desperately wished for some sort of pain to remind herself that she was alive, something to counteract this pernicious cold and the sight of the mangled and charred body in front of her.

 

“Shepard!  Shepard!  Snap out of it!”  Her head snapped backward as Garrus shook her shoulder violently.  “Shepard, that’s not you!” he growled over the comm.  She must have been speaking out loud.  

 

Garrus picked her up and turned her so she couldn’t see the body.  “Listen to me.  Breathe, Shepard.  Deep breath in, hold it, breathe out.”  She hunched over, hands over her midsection, trying to block out everything but Garrus’ voice as he talked her down.  She didn’t know how long they stayed like that, with him between her and that gruesome sight, listening to the steady monotone of his voice until she finally felt strong enough to stand upright.  “I’m better.  Thanks, Garrus.”

 

“You sure, Shepard?”

 

She nodded and slowly looked at the body again.  She knelt awkwardly in the thin methane snow, and with shaky hands, reached out and carefully removed the dog tags.  “Specialist Amina Waaberi,” she read, “may you rest in peace.”  Her voice was shaking almost as badly as her hands.  She wished there was more she could do, but recovery of the bodies was impossible.  

 

She focused on her breathing again, brought it back under control, and pushed up to her feet.  She overcompensated and jumped three feet in the air, arms windmilling to keep her balance as she floated back to the ground.  “You didn’t see that,” she told him as he snickered over the comm.

 

“See what?  The famed Savior of the Citadel, lifelong spacer, so rattled that she forgot how to stand up in a low grav environment?

 

“Yeah, yeah, yuk it up.  I know what you’re doing.”

 

“Is it working?”  There was too much worry in his voice, in spite of his attempt at levity.

 

“Not really.  Alright, that’s one.”  She manipulated the omni-tool interface to remove this dot and focused on the next closest one.  

 

Garrus emphatically made her stand back a couple feet while he found the corpse and retrieved the dog tags from the second and third bodies.  As much as she hated to admit it, she was grateful to Garrus for interceding until she could regain her equanimity.  It wasn’t getting easier to see those mangled corpses, but she had a mission.  She had promised Admiral Hackett that she would recover every soldier’s tags and place a memorial to honor their loss, and damned if she wouldn’t do just that.

 

The next dot brought them to the CIC.  She mounted the steps to the galaxy map, but the image existed only in her mind.  Its intact ghost warred with the warped and twisted metal that made up the handrails and the consoles around the map.  A black square caught her eyes and she bent to pick up a data pad.  It still had power and she flicked it on.  “Pressly,” she whispered.  

 

She laughed and cried at the same time as she read through his entries, detailing his change of heart concerning the aliens on his ship.  Rough, but honest.  She hadn’t liked him at first, had ridden him hard when he first started speaking against recruiting aliens as part of the Normandy’s crew.  But she saw that Tali and the rest had done far more to effect his change of heart than any of Shepard’s speeches ever had.  “God rest, Pressly,” she whispered as she set the data pad back on the destroyed galaxy map.

 

“Shepard, look over here!” Garrus called.  She bounded down from the wrecked CIC toward his location.  “Should have known if it could survive your driving, a little drop from orbit wouldn’t destroy it.”  The Mako rested on a slight hill, partly covered by shielding from the Normandy, but still intact.

 

The sight of the Mako, looking like it was perfectly preserved in all this chaos, did lift her spirits.  She remembered her, Garrus and Wrex careening around mountain slopes that a goat couldn’t have navigated.  “You know, I purposefully flipped it a couple of times just to see if I could get Wrex to squawk.  He never did.  Got you more than once,” she said, forcing the lighthearted teasing tone.  

 

“You had us heading for a rock spike upside down, Shepard!  You expected me to stay quiet in the face of your insanity?” he asked incredulously.

 

A smile twitched on her lips.  “Wrex did.  Actually, he just chuckled when I flipped it and landed on the back two wheels.  I think he was having fun.”

 

“That krogan has a quad of steel,” he replied fondly.  “That was the trip where I kicked you out of the driver’s seat and took over.  You were better on the guns anyway.”

 

“Yeah, Wrex and I would tear it up.  Mercs, geth...didn’t matter.  Good times,” she whispered.

 

Garrus wrapped his arm around her shoulders and hugged.  “You should send him a vid when we get back.  He’ll get a kick out of the Mako surviving.”

 

She nodded absently as she checked her map.  Only a handful of tags remained to be gathered.  They were grouped into two pockets on opposite sides of the valley.  “Let’s split up,” she told him.  “We can collect the tags, set the monument and get back to the Normandy.”

 

“You sure, Shepard?  We’ve got plenty of oxygen left.  No need to rush.”

 

She felt her tiny blush of amusement from the Mako memories wash away in a surge of irritation.  She’d let him come with her because she felt guilty, but she didn’t need him babysitting her every move.  She couldn’t get off this planet fast enough.  The emotional roller coaster was almost worse than the actual task of collecting the dog tags.

 

“I’m fine, Garrus,” she replied curtly.  “Just go.”  Setting movement to words, she stomped off toward the other side of valley.  Unfortunately, stomping in low gravity meant she jumped a ridiculous height in the air and had to windmill her arms for balance on the way down.  She waited to hear a snicker over the comm, but he wisely kept quiet.

 

She was searching near a short cliff face when an unnaturally round, snow covered rock caught her attention.  She wandered over to it and brushed the snow off to reveal “N7”, deeply scarred by its fall to Alchera.  She stumbled and fell backward onto her ass in the snow and rocks.  She’d found her helmet.  

 

_That’s me.  I was there.  That’s where I fell!_

 

Her vision went dim as all the blood drained from her face.  She couldn’t catch her breath as she stared blankly at the patch of snow, expecting to see her own corpse lying there.  Immediately, she was thrown back in time, remembering vividly being thrown clear of the SR1, knowing in her heart that there was no going back, a victim of gravity’s ruthless grip.  Then hearing the hiss of air leaking out of the ruptured hose.  Panicked, she grabbed her air hose behind her neck with trembling hands, reliving those last terrifying moments.  She felt a hot flash sweep over her and gasped for air again, imagining burning up in Alchera’s thin atmosphere.  

 

There was no air in her helmet, she was going to suffocate!  Desperate, her fingers scrabbled against her helmet locks.  Air!  She had to have air and there wasn’t any in her suit.  Something flashed red in the corner of her eye, and her ears were pounding in time with her thudding heart.  The fingers of one hand caught on a helmet tog, then slipped off due to the tremors that were back with a vengeance.  

 

She heard voices dimly through the pounding in her ears, and that red light was flashing with strobe-like intensity into her eyes.  She tried to grab a rock and smash it into her helmet, but her hands wouldn’t move.  The world tilted crazily, and she felt like she was spinning endlessly in space.  Her lungs burned and her body arched as she gasped for air that wasn’t there.  “Can’t breathe!  Can’t breathe!” she gasped as her fingers clenched again in a futile attempt to unlatch her helmet.  

 

A sudden bright flare from Alchera’s sun blinded her before a shadow blocked it out.  She was spinning in space, the sun blinking bright in her eyes for a few seconds before she spun away from it.  She didn’t want to die!  She wasn’t ready!  

 

Something was off.  The blinking light was red, not Amada’s watery yellow, and the sun wasn’t rotating.  She wasn’t moving.  Slowly the voices in her head started to resolve.  One was a familiar flanging voice that was frantically saying her name over and over.  The other was a mechanical voice repeating a series of sounds over and over.  

 

With a disorienting snap, the outside world came into focus and the words in her helmet made sense.  “Warning.  Safety override.  Unsafe external atmosphere.  Warning.  Safety override.  Unsafe external atmosphere.  Warning...”  The red light was a safety alarm trying to warn her against unfastening her helmet.

 

“Shepard!  Calm down!  Breathe!   You can breathe.  You have plenty of air in your suit.  Breathe!”  The shadow in front of the sun was Garrus’ scarred armor.  Even though she couldn’t see his facial expression through his tinted visor, the fear in his voice came through loud and clear.  Blinking the tears away, she turned her head to the side to see why she couldn’t move her hands.  The reason was obvious.  Garrus was kneeling on one arm and holding the other to the ground in a grip so tight bones would have been grinding in her wrist if it weren’t for her protective armor.

 

The heat in her body flashed to ice cold as she realized she’d been about to commit suicide by opening her helmet.  Her suit’s VI had protected her from her own fear and stupidity until Garrus could get to her.  Her stomach convulsed again, and she had to swallow hard to keep the contents down.  Her hands started to shake and she began to keen in bitter sorrow and despair.  Over and over the thought kept circling her mind that she’d almost died again.  Alchera seemed determined to be her death.  

 

“Shepard, calm down.  Breathe.  That’s it.  Breathe for me.  You’re safe.  You’re not in space.  You have plenty of air.  Just breathe.”  Garrus continued his litany to try and get her to back to rational thinking.

 

 _Thank God for Garrus_ , flashed through her mind.  He would always have her six.  She was suddenly absurdly glad he had guilted her into bringing him.  She fought to bring her crying under control.  “You can...can let me...go now,” she gasped feebly into the comm.  

 

“You sure?” he asked warily.  “You’re not going to flip up again and try to take your helmet off?”

 

“Flip out, not up,” she corrected with her eyes closed.  She was utterly exhausted, and even if he let her go, she wasn’t sure she had the strength to do anything at the moment.  

 

Tentatively, he let go of her arm, although his hand hovered just above it, as if afraid she’d try to remove her helmet again.  When she showed no signs of moving, he eased his knee off her other arm.  “You okay now, Shepard?”

 

“No, Garrus.  Not in the least,” she said baldly.  “But I don’t think I’m going to have another panic attack.”  They sat there in silence for a very long time.  Garrus was obviously unwilling to leave her side, and she wasn’t ready to move from this spot.  She couldn’t lie on her back on this hellish snowball forever, though, and eventually she struggled to sit up.  Garrus assisted with a hand behind her back.  “Oh god,” she gulped as she saw her old helmet sitting in the snow by her knee.  She must have grabbed it at some point.  She pulled it into her lap and cradled it against her body.  Tears were falling off her chin and it was horribly annoying that she couldn’t wipe her face clean.

 

She traced the outline of the ‘N7’ with her gloved fingertip, over and over, sometimes tracing the deep grooves that ran across the symbols.  Her VI beeped at her, informing her she was down to sixty minutes of air.

 

She slumped over the helmet.  “How many more tags?” she asked dispiritedly.  

 

“Six.”

 

“Alright, let’s go.”

 

“Shepard, I can get them.  Let’s get you to the shuttle...”

 

She didn’t even bother responding.  She wasn’t going to hide in the shuttle while he retrieved the last tags.  She owed her crew more than that.  She climbed to her feet, battered N7 helmet clutched tight in her left hand.  Together, they searched the stark windswept landscape for their remaining crewmates.  No words passed between them, but they didn’t need them.  It was a return to the dark old days on the SR2 when she was desperately trying to come to grips with what the Collectors and Cerberus had done to her.  Garrus had listened to every lament and conspiracy theory she’d had, then calmly talked her down.  She was relying on innate stubbornness to get through one minute, one hour at a time, and Garrus was providing wordless support.  

 

At each corpse, he refused to let her be the one who retrieved the tags, but he handed them to her to place in the bag.  She lacked the energy to complain.

 

Finally they had them all.  Her VI informed her she was down to thirty minutes of air, and she passed that on to Garrus.  A low mmmm was his first response.  “You gobbled up a lot of Os, you know.”  She nodded.  “Let’s get that monument set and get you back to the shuttle so we can get you out of the suit.”

 

As they trudged through the snow, she asked, “How much air do you have left?”

 

“Little over two hours.”

 

Yep, she thought grimly.  Alchera definitely wanted her dead.  Too bad she didn’t feel like cooperating.

 

She stowed the bag with its precious contents safely in the shuttle while Garrus maneuvered the monument out of storage.  It was bulky, but lightweight, even more so in Alchera’s low gravity.  Together, they took it to the CIC and positioned it on a solid piece of rock.  She touched a button at the base, and bolts fired at all four corners, anchoring the monument to the ground.  She knelt in the sparse snow in front of the monument and ran her fingers along the plaque.

 

_Here lie the remains of the SSV Normandy SR-1 along with the remains of twenty of her crew members.  Their bodies may lie far from the warmth of their homeworld, but we call their spirits and memories back to be part of us forever more.  Respect this hallowed ground and its honored dead._

 

Shepard wasn’t a religious person.  Her parents had taken her to chapel in a few of the larger ships and stations, but the words of God never measured up against the immensity and majesty of the stars she could see out every porthole.  Compound that with the total lack of any memory or supernatural experience when she died in orbit over this very planet, and her meager faith had taken a major beating.  Nevertheless, at this moment, she felt compelled to say her own prayer.

 

“Please, God, watch over these men and women, and take them in your embrace.  The Alliance says it hasn’t forgotten them, but it’s not doing anything to avenge them or to safeguard the rest of humanity from the Collectors.  I swear I will protect humanity, no matter what it takes.  I will take any resources I can get, any ally who will stand with me.”  She paused and lifted her gaze to the sky as a tear rolled down her cheek.  “Please, God, I will do everything in my power, but I can use your help, too.  I can’t do it alone.”

 

Garrus reached out to take her hand in his.  Armored gloves made it awkward, but the sentiment came through loud and clear.  “You won’t ever be alone, Shepard.  I swear by all the spirits of Palaven, we’ll get through this.”  

 

She tightened her hand around his.  “I couldn’t do it without you, Garrus.  There’s no Shepard without Vakarian”

 

“Damn straight.  So stop trying to do everything alone.  You’ve got me, and you built a great team, Shepard.  Use it,” he told her.

 

The sun hadn’t moved, but then the day was almost sixty hours long on Alchera.  Garrus ushered her into the shuttle, but she didn’t climb in right away.  She paused at the doorway and stared out over the wreckage of the Normandy.  There was her old life, broken and scattered, bones of ship and crew left to decay under an alien sun an unimaginable distance from Earth.  But up in orbit, she had a brand new Normandy, bigger and better.  She still had Garrus.  She had a new crew.  And now she had Thane.  

 

She’d wring every bit of usefulness out of Cerberus and the Illusive Man, forge new alliances, and build something stronger and better out of the ashes of her old life.  

 

She looked up into the sky again.  Not a bad analogy for her life.  The phoenix rising from the ashes, brighter and stronger than ever before.  Shepard turned her back on Alchera and everything it held.  Garrus closed the shuttle door and they headed for home.

 

* * *

 

A/N: Thank you to Orchidellia at ff dot net, my beta reader!


	22. Someone to Watch Over Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard isn't dealing well with her mission to Alchera.

Shepard's positive mood lasted until she reached the Normandy.  Miranda and Joker were there when the shuttle door opened.

Miranda and Joker spoke over each other.  "Are you okay?"  "Did you find them all?"

Shepard stepped out with her functional helmet in one hand, and the bag of dog tags and her battered N7 helmet from Alchera in the other.  Joker looked confused as he spotted the two helmets.  "Why did you bring back that old..." He stopped with a strangled sound and his ears turned bright red as he realized Shepard was carrying the helmet she had died in, and for once the outspoken pilot had nothing to say.  

"Yes and yes."  Her irritation was growing rapidly.  Shepard figured Miranda was there to see if there was any crack in her precious project's psyche after visiting the site where she died.  Her irritation hardened into steely anger as she brushed past them.  "Mission accomplished.  Joker, set a course for Illium immediately.  I never want to see this system again.”  Shepard knew she should have tried harder to keep the harshness from her words, but her anger was needling her and forcing her words out harder than she intended.  No one made a move to join her in the elevator, which suited her just fine.  They could wait the eternity it would take for the elevator to take her to the Loft and come back down.  

She stomped into her cabin and set her old N7 helmet and the bag onto the table in her sitting area.  Without bothering to remove her armor, she half sat, half fell onto the couch and hunched her elbows onto her knees, staring at the two objects as if they would suddenly attack.  The faceplate was cracked, she noted absently.   No burn marks on the ceramic.  Alchera's atmosphere wasn't thick enough.  Thank goodness, or there would have been no body for Cerberus to recover and perform their Frankenstein experiments on.  Light gravity, too, so her body couldn't have been smashed too badly.  

Tentatively, probing tenderly at the scar in her memories, she allowed her mind to consciously replay the day the Normandy was attacked.  

She remembered how suddenly the Collector ship had appeared.  They had been scanning for weeks with nothing.  The crew was lulled into complacency, and she was running drills to keep them on their toes.  She had been about to run another one.  In fact, at first, she thought Pressly had found out and pre-empted her, but that wasn't his style.  He was too by the book.  Within seconds, Joker was flinging the ship through space so hard that the mass effect gravity fields couldn't keep up, and she'd had to hold onto a console to keep from being flung into the walls.  

Two more heartbeats and the ship was hit.  She knew in her bones that the first hit was fatal and the Normandy would never recover, even though Joker kept trying his best to outmaneuver the enemy.  She slipped easily into her battle calm, where she could make the life and death decisions needed.  As she locked her helmet into place, Kaidan had run up behind her, telling her that Joker wouldn't leave.  Behind the calm, she remembered a warm feeling for him, for the moments they had shared, but then she ruthlessly pushed it away.  She had a crew to save.  She gave the order to abandon ship, had yelled at Kaidan to get his ass to the escape pods and ensure the rest of the crew got off safely.  

She didn't even look back at him as he left.

She remembered the walk through CIC with the roof ripped away, Alchera shining brightly above the crippled Normandy.  Arguing with Joker, the sick feeling of his arm breaking under her hands as she hauled him out of his chair.  She shoved him into the escape pod, little caring if she broke something else.  They had only seconds to escape before the enemy ship fired again, but her time ran out.  An explosion pushed her away from the escape pods, and she was helpless against the laws of gravity and momentum.  She clawed for the escape pod controls, and just managed to push the button.  

Newton's third law was her death sentence.  It decreed that the force she used to push the button and save Joker would kill her as it sent her spinning out into space.  She remembered Joker's horrified look as he, too, realized there was nothing she could do to come back to the ship.   

Maybe she could live long enough for one of the escape pods to circle back around and pick her up.  It was possible.  She clung to the hope, even as the enemy ship fired again, causing another explosion and sending shrapnel in every direction.  It must have been one of those tiny pieces that nicked her air hose.  Anywhere else and she might have survived.  Shrapnel that penetrated her compression suit would have hurt, but she could have put a patch on it.  Vacuum exposure of skin was never as dramatic as the vids made it out to be.  She could have covered the hole with her gloved hand until she was rescued.  But it was her air hose that was hit.  Vital oxygen was free flowing into the cold vacuum of space, giving her only seconds to live.

The terror hit her again, just as it had on Alchera.  She twisted around with unseeing eyes, hands again reaching behind her for the hissing air hose.  Her breath came fast and shallow.  Her last moments flashed again through her mind.  She saw the round shape of Joker's escape pod rocket away.  She wasn't brave enough to be happy that he was safe.  She was filled with rage that she was going to die.  Her enemy had snuck in and delivered a killing blow before she even knew they were there.  It wasn't fair!  She could feel the pressure falling in her suit.  It was harder to breathe and she was gasping for air.   _Come back_ , she screamed.   _Come back.  Save me!_ But there wasn't enough air to make any sound.  Her vision faded, her lungs were screaming for air but there wasn't any more.  She was dying, and she remembered it in every cell in her body.

Shepard grabbed the fractured helmet and beat it down onto the table with a primal scream.  It went on and on, the scream that she had been denied by lack of oxygen before.  There were no words as she continued hammering the table with her old helmet.  Tears streamed down her face, and she screamed until her throat was raw.  She fell to her knees and collapsed against the table.  Its smooth surface was unmarked and cool to her fevered forehead.  She beat her fist against the table feebly.  It felt like her heart was tearing itself out of her flesh.  She had died.  Not a close call that left her filled with adrenaline.  Not a bullet wound with its stinging pain and a reminder to move faster next time.  

This had been death.  Final.  Irresistible.  No escape.  And she still felt it pulling her down in her bones and in her dreams.

She sniffled and wiped her nose with her gloved hand, only then realizing she was still in her hard suit.  She pulled her glove off and tossed it in the direction of her armor closet.  It came nowhere close, but she didn’t care.  The second glove landed on the bed.  She hauled herself to her feet and started stripping the rest of the armor off.  She had been in these dark periods before.  There were only two ways out:  wait it out or put a gun to her head, and as bad as she felt, she still couldn’t bear the thought of the latter option.

When the bleak darkness was the worst, she threw herself into the mission.  There was always plenty to do, plenty to worry about.  It was a relief to talk to her crew and be able to help them with their problems, and it genuinely made her happy when she could help.  Sometimes, however, a little voice pleaded in the back of her mind for someone to help her with her problems.  Who would put her back together? _Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.  Humpty Dumpty had a great fall._

Who would watch over her?  No way in hell would she ever talk to Kelly or Miranda about these thoughts.  Garrus did an admirable job, but she couldn’t keep leaning on him.  He had his own demons to battle.  There was Thane, but she didn’t want to burden him with her ugly dark thoughts.  She relied on him to be the bright spot in her day, the promise of hope in the future, even if it was unfairly short.  

She pushed the voice down.  She was Commander fucking Shepard.  She had been brought back to do a job that nobody else could, and she would finish it no matter the cost.  

With a groan, she headed for the shower.  Her shoulders were hunched, and she made a conscious effort to square them.  It didn't matter that no one else was around to see.  It was how you acted when you were alone that defined your character.  Ultimate strength was found in the depths of despair.  Right now, she felt like nothing more than an exposed rock, scrubbed clean of any empathy, friendship or lighter emotions.  But there was also no room for doubt.  She had taken a beating on Alchera, both today and in the past, but she was still standing, still determined.  She would force the Collectors to pay for what they did to her and her crew, and there was no room in her soul for mercy.

* * *

 

EDI’s blue holographic interface popped up in the cockpit.  “Jeff, I desire your input in regard to human activity.”

“Need me to explain the birds and the bees again, EDI?”

“Birds and bees have very different reproductive systems than humans, Jeff.  I fail to see why you keep referencing them.”

Joker rolled his eyes and tapped his fingers to his thumbs in a yappity yap gesture.  “Yeah, yeah.  So what’s got you chasing your tail this time?”

EDI’s hologram pulsed, but she let Joker’s odd reference slide this time.  “It has to do with Commander Shepard.  Her vital signs are exhibiting extreme stress, and her activities are consistent with someone who is on the verge of a mental breakdown.  Should I notify Dr. Chakwas?”

  
“What?” he squawked.  The idea of the Commander having a breakdown didn’t compute at first, then he thought about the two helmets she had been carrying when she got off the shuttle.  “God, no, EDI.  Just...just leave her alone, okay?  I’m pretty sure she just needs to blow off some steam, or...or something.  I mean, it had to have been rough today, seeing the place you died.  Hell, I’m having a hard time, and it wasn’t me that sucked vacuum two years ago.  She’s the Commander. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”  Joker busied himself with another scan of the ship, studiously ignoring the biometric screen blinking in the corner.  

“Very well, Jeff.  I will take your word for it.  You are also exhibiting elevated stress levels, Jeff.  Is there something you would like to discuss?”

“Why, did you bring up your psychiatrist subroutines, EDI?” Joker asked in his typical snark.

“On the contrary, Jeff.  I do not have any psychiatry programs resident in my programming.  I am merely trying to understand human behavior and ensure that my crew is functioning optimally.”

“Well, here’s a hint, EDI.  Humans don’t like to be optimized.  We’re not machines.  We like to hang out with friends and feel good.”  Ah hell, he just had to open the screen, didn’t he?  Yeah, the Commander’s blip was bright red and flashing urgently in her cabin.  His was orange, and huh...so was Garrus’.  Guess this stop was hard for all the old crew.  

“Would you consider me a friend, Jeff?”

“You’re an AI, EDI.  How can you be a friend?”

“By definition, friends talk.  They care about each other.  They strive to make each other feel better.”  She paused.  “I would like you to consider me your friend, Jeff.”

Huh.  Joker was nonplussed.  “I bet you say that to all the crew, EDI.”

“No, Jeff.  Just you.  While I interact with the entire crew, I have devoted thirty two percent of my processing power to observing you and striving to understand how you think.  It is imperative that we operate as a team.  You are my pilot, and you are the most interesting human I have interacted with in my existence.  You defy most expectations.”

Joker’s ears turned pink.  “Uh...thanks?  I think.”

“May I ask you a question, Jeff? 

“Another one?  Okay, sure, I could use the distraction right now.”

“Why did you describe yourself as looking like the porn star Jeremy James in your online dating profile in Nos Astra?"

Joker nearly choked on his coffee, and this time he was sure he fractured his thumb hitting the mute button.

* * *

 All day since coming back from Alchera, she'd alternated between stony stoicism, teary abject misery, screaming fits of rage, and the calm that only comes after severe emotional storms.  In the calm periods, she tidied up her cabin.  It was true that the larger the space, the more you tended to accumulate.  Even a lifelong spacer such as herself wasn't immune.  She cleaned her armor and put it away and sorted her meager closet.  At least she had more than the Cerberus outfits to wear now.  She was up to four pairs of shoes and her hanar party dress, in addition to a decent amount of civvie and workout clothes.  

Turning to her sitting area, she considered her battered N7 helmet.  It had survived her earlier assault on the table without any additional damage, a testament both to how sturdy it was, and how much force it had taken even to crack the faceplate.  She picked it up and turned it side to side.  Right now, it was a reminder that she had to be strong.  There was simply too much at stake to let anything interfere with her mission.  She carried it to her desk and put it on a shelf where she could still see it, but it wouldn't be in her way.

Shepard stood on the steps and surveyed her cabin.  Neat as a pin.  Even her mother, the perfectionist, wouldn't be able to find anything out of place.  Her trash can was full of broken knick knacks and data pads that hadn't survived her intermittent rages, meaning she had even less to put away now.  She eyed her collection of model ships.  Suddenly, she wanted to visit Thane.  He always made her feel better, but her feelings were still so tender and raw from earlier today that she was afraid she might break down in tears in front of him, and frankly she was tired of crying.  

Her stomach grumbled.  She checked her omni-tool and saw that it was past 2000 hours ship time.  She grabbed a protein bar from her desk, unwilling to put the effort into finding something more substantial.  She was feeling wrung out from her emotional rollercoaster today.   

Suddenly she couldn't stand being cooped up in her cabin one more minute.  She grabbed the small bag of tags and headed to the door.  At the last second, she turned around and pulled her helmet off the shelf.  Shepard was going to honor her fellow soldiers' deaths in the best tradition of the navy, by drowning her sorrows in alcohol, and she might as well include herself in the count.

 

* * *

 She'd messaged Garrus and Joker to see if they wanted to join her.  She stopped by the port lounge to grab a couple bottles, including one for Garrus, then set up in the mess hall.  Kasumi trailed after her and offered to pour while Shepard eulogized.

Most of the crew had wandered through at some point during the night.  Shepard kept a bottle of vodka by her side, and Kasumi played bartender.  Shepard had decided to drink one shot for each fallen crew member, and Garrus and Joker had tried to keep up with her, but by the twelfth eulogy, Joker was slumped over at the end of the table.  Garrus was still upright, but his words didn't always come out in the right order.  She’d lost track of how many shots she’d had in between eulogies.

Shepard had all twenty dog tags lined up in a neat row in front of her.  Her helmet was at the end of the row, looking on like a disembodied head at a ghoulish wake.

She picked up the next dog tag in line.  "Hey, Garrus, you remember that time when ...when Emerson ...when he decided to install crash cushions in the Mako because you'd been bitchin' so much 'bout my driving?"

The turian laughed after a delay.  "Oh yeah.  He made some comment about bony turian asses couldn’t handle the shock.”

She snorted. “No, that was me, birdbrain.  And when Wrex gave you hell when you complained about jumping over that itty bitty lava flow on Nonuel.”

Garrus sputtered.  “Shepard!  You nearly sank us in lava!  My complaints were justified.”

She chuckled.  “You just wanted the chance to drive the Mako yourself.”

“Lot less shit to fix after I took over driving,” he retorted. “You broke everything on that damn Mako.  You owe me extra pay for how many hours I had to spend fixing the shit you broke.”

She waved off his complaint in a desultory manner. “You loved it.  The only thing you love more than that Mako is your new Thanix.”   She glanced back at the table and abruptly grew serious.  "Rest in peace, Emerson."

Garrus raised his glass.  "Here, here.  Spirits guide home... him...home."

"May I join you, Shepard?"  A green shape suddenly materialized in front of Shepard, and she was so drunk that Thane's appearance surprised the hell out of her.  She jumped backward, but her balance was gone and she only succeeded in tipping her chair backward.  Fast as thought, Thane hooked a foot around her chair leg and levered it back to the ground.  Shepard blinked owlishly at him as she processed what just happened.  "Um...thanks.  Hey, have a drink and join us!  We're having a wake!"

Thane rumbled deep in his chest, and Shepard couldn't tell if he was laughing at her or expressing his disappointment at her inebriated state.  "No thank you, siha.  I simply stopped by to offer my sympathies for the loss of your comrades."

Shepard frowned at him and decided he must be disappointed.  She hated the thought of not living up to whatever standard he had for her, but she was too far gone to care very much.  Right now, the pain of the day far outweighed the pain of disappointing Thane, and all she wanted to do was drown every bit of pain in vodka until it was a distant memory.  Her helmet glared accusingly at her, and she held out her empty shot glass to Kasumi.

Kasumi shook her head.  "I think you need a break, Shep.  I don't see how you're still conscious at this point, but I'd be irresponsible as a bartender if I let you keep going."  In a softer voice, she leaned in and continued, "They won't think less of you if you don't lift a glass to each one of them.”

Shepard knew, even in her inebriated haze, that her cybernetics were doing an admirable job of purging the alcohol from her system.  She should have been passed out with Joker by now, but she could still think and talk somewhat normally.  At least she thought she could, and that thought threw her into an internal contemplation about the mysteries of human thought and self-awareness.  It wasn’t until Kasumi shook her shoulder that she realized someone had been talking to her.    
  
“I said, you should go to bed, Shep.  Besides, we’re out of vodka, so unless you want to start on Grunt’s ryncol, you should stop now.”

Shepard leaned back and looked suspiciously at the empty vodka bottle with a blue label by Kasumi.  She was fairly sure the blue label was the first bottle they’d killed, and she’d recently been drinking out of a red label bottle.   “Are you cutting me off, Kasumi?”  Unintentionally, her voice dropped into the threat range as she stared the thief down.

Undeterred, Kasumi stared right back.  “Yes.  You’ve proven your point, Shep.  Now go to bed.”  She glanced at the drell still sitting across from Shepard.  “Thane, would you assist our brave Commander to her room?  I’ll take care of Joker.  Garrus, as long as you don’t fall flat on your face negotiating the stairs, I think you can get to the Battery.  Now both of you, shoo.”  With that, she carefully levered Joker out of his chair.  

He whined at her.  “But mom, I don’t wanna go.”

Kasumi’s response was too soft to make out, but Joker smiled beatifically at her and stumbled toward the crew quarters with one arm over her shoulder.

Garrus looked like he’d fallen asleep sitting upright in his chair, so Shepard turned her attention to Thane.  She knew if she tried to say something it would come out stumbling and scrambled, so rather than blurt out something stupid, she simply sat and waited for him to say something first.  Except that Thane was doing the same thing.  He was watching her with that blank expression that said he was evaluating you.  Shepard wondered what he saw, and if he was still disappointed in her.  She knew that as soon as she stood up, she’d be reinforcing the stereotype of a drunken marine stumbling to bed.  Bad enough that she was in command, but she rationalized it again that it wasn’t every day you were forced to face the place where you died a horrible death with those under your previous command, so she wasn’t going to care what the hell anyone thought about her tonight.  

She spread her fingers wide on the table, then upended her shot glass as she evaluated her physical condition.  Drunk off her ass, yes, but still able to walk and move, provided she did so slowly.  Underneath the comfortingly numb cushion of the alcohol, she still felt brittle, as if the slightest push in the wrong direction could shatter her into a million pieces.  However, it was late, and most of the crew had retired to their bunks.  All Shepard had to do was make it to her cabin, and then she could go to pieces in privacy if she had to.  No one really minded a drunk marine; it was all part of the package.  But seeing their Commander screaming and crying would be permanently bad for morale.  She wished she had one more shot, but Kasumi had effectively hidden the remaining vodka,  With a grimace, Shepard admitted it was time to pack it in and call it a night.  She wasn’t looking forward to going back to her empty cabin, but it was the only place on the Normandy where the crew would be safe from their Commander.  In another day, she hoped she’d be able to hold herself together enough to go back to her normal routine.  She’d done it before.

Reverently, she gathered up the dog tags and put them back into the bag.  Reaching for her battered helmet involved a dangerously off-balancing stretch, but she snagged it without falling out of her chair.  

Carefully this time, she pushed her chair back and stood up.  She evaluated herself again.  Only a slight weave on standing, and she was fairly certain she was perpendicular to the floor.  Now to put one foot in front of the other.  She had made it to the end of the table when she noticed Thane by her side.  He wasn’t touching her, but he was close enough to catch her if she stumbled, and that irritated her.  “I don’t need a babysitter, Thane.  I’m just going to my cabin.”  

He matched her slow pace.  “I would be remiss if I allowed something to happen to you after Miss Goto asked me to watch over you.”

Shepard couldn’t think of a good comeback to that while she was concentrating on walking without stumbling.  She was doing well, too, as long as she went slowly.  She glared at Thane when he entered the elevator with her, but he was as unperturbed as Kasumi had been. Evidently, she needed to improve her glare.  People weren’t jumping and agreeing with her anymore.  When they reached her cabin, she tried to tell him again to leave her be, but he had already moved past her and into the bathroom.  He returned with a glass of water and held her elbow as she cautiously navigated the stairs.

She set the helmet on the table facing her, feeling as if she were going to have a conversation with it.   _Alas, poor Yorik, I knew him well._  She sank into the couch and propped her feet up on the table next to the helmet.  When Thane handed her the glass, she asked him, “Sure I can’t offer you a drink instead?”

He seated himself on the couch without an invitation and shook his head.  “I rarely imbibe. I dislike the loquaciousness and lack of control that alcohol brings on.  However, I am aware of its effects on humans, and the more common cures for hangovers.  Drink.”  He gestured toward the glass.  “You’ll be glad you did in the morning.”

Grudgingly, she sipped the water as she considered him.  They were past the point of denying their attraction to each other, but he still stubbornly refused to move forward until Chakwas and Miranda had cleared her as back to normal, so he wasn’t here to take advantage of her drunken state.  She tried to puzzle out why he was staying in her cabin instead of just helping her get to her room and bed.  Abruptly, she set the glass down and leaned forward aggressively.  “Why are you here, Thane?  What do you want?”

“Answers.”  

His enigmatic reply was not what she was expecting.  She blinked at him again as she tried to figure out what he meant.  “To what?”

Now he seemed uncomfortable.  His inner eyelids fluttered and he scrubbed his hands along his thighs as he looked at her.  “Death.”

“What?  What do you mean?”  She was floundering, trying to understand what he was getting at.  She had the suspicion that she’d still be confused even without a fifth of vodka sloshing around in her system.

“You have traveled beyond the sea, into Kalahira’s domain and returned.  I know of no one else who has ever done so.  Do you...remember anything?”  His hands stilled and he watched her intently.

Now she understood.  He was facing his own mortality.  Of course he would want to know if anything lay beyond the great divide that was death.  But there was another matter that jumped out at her.  “You waited until I was drunk to ask,” she accused him.

He didn’t deny it.  He tilted his chin up as he answered.  “I knew it had been on your mind all day.  If I was going to ask, I thought it should be when you were remembering it, rather than distract you when you might not have been thinking about it.”

They stared at each other, him hopeful, and her debating what answer to give.  Finally she expelled her breath and looked away.  “There’s nothing there, Thane,” she said harshly.

“How do you know, siha?  Might there not have been something?  Perhaps with all the stress and chaos of your reawakening it might have been submerged by more urgent thoughts.”

“No!”  She flung her hand out in flat denial.  “There’s nothing.  Oblivion!  That whole tunnel of light people claim to see is nothing more than our neurons firing randomly as our brain shuts down.  It’s chemistry, not God.”

“We have discussed the possibility of a higher power existing in the cosmos, the quantum state of consciousness, and of universes lying parallel to our own.  You admitted that there might be room for something that is beyond our understanding.”

Shepard scowled, disturbed by his questions and the feeling of hope that came through in his words and posture.  “God, heaven, our loved ones waiting for us after we die...those are just lies we tell ourselves so we can make it through one more long dark terrifying night.  It would be nice to believe in God, but what has he, she, it, whatever, done for us?” she asked bitterly.

He shook his head in denial.  “I refuse to believe you, siha.  I know Kalahira sits on her black throne across the sea.  I have felt the touch of the gods throughout my life.”

“Yeah, how?” she challenged.

“There is no other explanation for how Irikah could stand in my path and strike me down with nothing more than her bravery.  Arashu put her there, opened my eyes.   _Nothing_ had ever stopped me before,” he said fervently.

Suddenly it was all too much.  Thane’s belief in his gods kept him sane, it gave him something solid to cling to, someone to absolve his guilt.  What did she have?  Memories of death and blackness and the bone-deep surety that there was nothing out there.  Nothing that would give her the same strength and composure.  Without thinking, she retorted, “That wasn’t your goddess.  That was nothing more than a pair of pretty eyes that caught the attention of your cock.”

She knew immediately that she had gone too far.  Thane’s eyes narrowed, and he slammed his hand down on the table with a crack.  He leaned in and she was suddenly reminded that he wasn’t just the calm monk or sexy lover she hoped for; he was a deadly assassin, raised without morals or ethics and trained to be lethal in more ways than she’d ever comprehend.  “You will not speak of her in that way again.”  His voice, always so low and gravelly, now held an unmistakable edge of iron and danger.

They stared at each other, blue eyes hot with anger and despair and fathomless black ones glittering with implacable wrath.  Finally she looked away.  In a barely audible voice she said, “I’m sorry, Thane.  I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No.  You should not.”  He took a deep breath and stood up to stare into the fish tank.  His jacket couldn’t hide the lines of tension in his shoulders and neck.

The numbing coat of insulation provided by the alcohol was wearing dangerously thin, and she felt more fragile than ever.  She couldn’t deal with Thane’s silent accusations, with the guilt of her own careless words about a dead woman he loved more than life on top of what she’d already gone through today.  The bottle of rum was still in her room, only a couple of feet away.  She stumbled off the couch and snagged it from its resting spot.

When she pulled the cork out, Thane spoke without looking away from the fish tank, “Haven’t you had enough, Shepard?”  Disapproval was thick in his voice.

She winced.  She must have wounded him deeper than she had thought if he had fallen back to calling her by her formal name.  “Probably, but since the day’s a total loss anyway, why stop now?” she asked flippantly.  She put the bottle to her lips and tipped it back.  As soon as the liquor coated her tongue, she knew she had made her second mistake.  The spicy rum reminded her painfully of Thane’s passionate kisses, but now he was holding himself cold and isolated from her.  The thought of losing him, just when she had opened herself up to him was more than she could handle.  Tears started running from her eyes and she hunched over her knees, trying to contain the pain in her midsection.  It felt like she had swallowed glass and that any second she would fly apart into dangerously sharp shards.  

  
The darkness was coming for her again.  She had to get him out of her cabin before she lost it.  On top of everything else, she couldn’t bear to let him see her fall apart.  He had seen too much already.  If she wanted to have any chance to salvage her relationship with him, she couldn’t risk him seeing her screaming and crying like she had earlier today.  He was a man who not only dealt death casually but faced it himself every time he looked in the mirror.  How would he still respect her if she kept crying and carrying on like a schoolgirl just because she had a bad day?

“Leave,” she whispered.  She didn’t trust her voice enough to speak any louder, but she knew he heard her because he turned around suddenly.  

“Shepard?”

“Go,” she whispered again.  She was hanging on to her control by the merest of threads, and it was growing thinner every second.

She fixed her eyes on the sightless helmet in front of her as she listened to Thane walk up the stairs.  His steps were unusually loud and slow, but he didn’t argue with her.  Even as he followed her orders, a part of her desperately wished he would disobey and stay.  Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be between them.  She was the Commander, and he was the subordinate.  How many times did she have to learn this particularly painful lesson?  She told herself to count to ten after the door closed before she started crying.  She made it to five before her world fell to pieces.

 

* * *

 

A/N: Thank you to Orchidellia on ff dot net, my beta reader!

 

This is one of the handful of scenes I knew I wanted to write when I first started this.  I really wanted to show how they handled death and religion so differently.

 


	23. Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thane and Shepard deal with their issues with each other.
> 
> Warning. There are mentions of suicidal thoughts in this chapter.

 

 

Thane looked at Shepard’s cabin as the elevator door closed.  He thought he heard something strange, but the elevator doors cut it off before he could be certain.  He wondered if he had made a mistake in leaving, but he had made Shepard a promise long ago one night on the Citadel.   _If the time comes when you must order me away, even if it were to my death, I would obey._  He had not anticipated that she would order him to leave under these circumstances, but he would keep his word no matter how much it hurt him to walk away from her.  

 

Yes, he was angry at her words, but there was something more, an uneasiness created by her words that he didn’t yet understand.  Perhaps, he allowed, he had made a tactical error in broaching this subject with her tonight.  He had thought his logic sound, but the words of a long ago instructor floated through his mind.   _“Human tend to be the least logical of the major spacefaring races.  Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, but be aware that humans will often make decisions based on emotion, even if it runs contrary to their best interests.”_

 

In his time on the Normandy, Shepard had always impressed him with her ruthless pragmatism tempered with compassion.  In battle, she kept her composure and was rarely surprised.  For all her protestations of hating politics in general, she understood what motivated individuals, which was how she had transformed her team into a family.  Now he was wondering if he had missed something in her, even after all their conversations.  Perhaps emotions played a bigger role in her persona than he had suspected.  

 

He would retreat, meditate and come up with a new strategy.  She might order him away for tonight, but he refused to allow her to push him away for long.  

 

Wearily he pressed the button for the crew deck.  There was nothing more to be done here tonight.  He frowned when the lift didn’t move.  A second later, a voice came over the speaker grill in the elevator panel.  “Thane, there is something I want to discuss with you.”

 

“EDI?”

 

“Yes.  Jeff informs me it is impolite to listen to private conversations, so I did not activate the speakers in the Commander’s quarters.  However, I am unable to stop monitoring crew location and biometric data.  Both you and Commander Shepard have suddenly exhibited extremely increased levels of stress.”

 

Thane suddenly felt an affinity for the pilot’s constant diatribe against the intrusiveness of Cerberus’ AI.  He cut her off.  “EDI, I am fine, and any conversation between the Commander and myself is private, to be resolved by us later.”

 

“Yes, Thane.  Jeff has been giving me several long instructions on human protocol, which I have attempted to extrapolate to turian, krogan, salarian, quarian, and drell.  Normally I would not intervene.  However, events on Alchera earlier today are completely outside of normal parameters for the Commander and have impacted my assessment of her stress level and activities, especially when coupled with data from you.”

 

Thane had a sneaking suspicion the AI was taking an uncomfortably close look at his private life onboard the Normandy.  “I don’t see what this has to do with me, EDI.  Everyone knows that Shepard went to Alchera today to retrieve the mementos of her fallen comrades.  All the Cerberus crew were expressing sentiments that it would be a difficult time for her, and that they hoped she would pull through.  So her reactions are not unexpected.”  He blinked as he listened to himself.  Of course she was under severe emotional stress today.  That must have been what was underlying her actions tonight.

 

“No, Thane, you were not on Alchera to witness what happened to her there, nor have you witnessed her reactions since returning to the Normandy.”

 

Thane felt like he was missing something.  “EDI, why are you telling me this?  What happened on Alchera?”

 

“I would show you the video, Thane; however, Garrus classified it as medical emergency to be viewed by Dr. Chakwas only.  I can view it, but I cannot pass it along to you or comment on the contents.”

 

“But you can tell me that something out of the ordinary happened,” he deduced.  “And that it was extreme enough to merit Garrus putting a lock on the video.  Did he lock all the video from Alchera?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Thane’s lips thinned.  It had been a remote hope that Garrus would have missed something like that.  “Who can show me the video?”

 

“Only Dr. Chakwas has permission to share a crewman’s medical data with anyone else.”

 

“I don’t suppose Dr. Chakwas is still awake, is she?”  It was well after midnight, ship time.

 

“She is.  She’s waiting for you in the Med Bay.”

 

“Waiting?  Did she ask you to speak to me?  Why not simply ask me herself?”

 

“I expressed an interest in understanding the unusual biometric readings from Shepard, Garrus and Jeff today.  Dr. Chakwas has been most helpful in interpreting the results.  She said that she expected something like this and to please stop by as soon as convenient.”  The elevator started moving as she finished.

 

Concerned now, Thane strode through the dimly lit crew mess toward Med Bay.  He saw the chair Shepard had been sitting in, still pushed back from the table.  Her shot glass was still upside down.  Gardner had gone to bed hours ago and wouldn’t clean it up until breakfast time.  He could still see in his memories the row of human dog tags and Shepard’s original N7 helmet sitting on the table.  For a moment, he wished he could go into the Battery and order Garrus to tell him what happened on Alchera, but the tall turian had been as drunk as Shepard.  So he turned to the human medic.

 

He saw the doctor sitting at her desk.  She looked older than usual, the lines on her face carved deeper with worry and tiredness.  “Come in, Thane,” she said as he hesitated in the doorway.  She had pulled up one of the waiting chairs next to her, and she patted it in invitation.

 

Moving warily, as if in response to an unknown threat, he advanced and sat down.  

 

“I’m half surprised to see you at all tonight.  I had thought it more likely you would spend the night in Shepard’s quarters.”  She spoke matter of factly.

 

“I don’t see what business it is of yours, Doctor.  No offense.”

 

“Shepard is my business, Thane,” she answered briskly.  “As you all are, but especially her.  I could have told her that she shouldn’t have gone to Alchera.  I told Garrus to make sure he went with her.  I don’t know what he said to her, but it worked, thank goodness.”

 

“You are...spying on us?”

 

“No, no, not at all.  Jeff isn’t the only one who told EDI not to listen in to private conversations; I abhor the idea.  But your relationship with Shepard is hardly private knowledge, Thane.”  She patted his hand.  “Personally, I think it’s the best thing that could have happened to either one of you.”  She settled back in her chair and adjusted her jacket.  “Thane, I have something important to ask you.  What do you want from Shepard?”

 

Every self-preservation instinct he had fought against divulging such sensitive information, but he sensed Shepard was in trouble, and he knew that she and the doctor were old friends.  “I promised to dedicate myself to her, body and soul.”

 

“Yes, Thane, but what do you want from her?” she asked again, emphasizing the last two words.  

 

He struggled with how much to tell the human medic.  Aside from his weekly checkups with her, he rarely interacted with the woman, and he couldn’t bring himself to confide such deeply personal information to her.  “I want her to be happy,” he finally said.  “I want to spend my days with her, if she would have me.”  In truth, he wanted so much more.  He wanted to spend years with her, exploring each other in body, mind and soul.  He wanted her with an intensity he had only felt once before.

 

The doctor looked at him, then nodded once.  “I wouldn’t tell you this except for your relationship with Shepard.  I doubt she’ll ever tell you this on her own.  She’s an intensely private person when it comes to her own hopes and fears, and the only ones she’s ever truly confided in are Garrus and myself.  She wouldn’t even talk to me if it weren’t for the fact that I have to help her manage her panic attacks.”  At Thane’s puzzled look, she explained.  “Humans can develop a susceptibility to panic attacks after an acute trauma.  It’s exactly what it sounds like.  The higher brain functions shut off, and she descends into a fight or flight mentality, frequently accompanied by hallucinations.  Hers are usually triggered by nightmares.  For a while, I had convinced Garrus to sleep in her cabin on the couch, which seemed to keep them at bay, but she became concerned about the gossip that was starting so he returned to his own bunk.

 

“Each person develops their own way of coping.  For the longest time, Shepard’s method was alcohol to drown out the nightmares.  As time passed, she had time to process the trauma, plus she had other things to think about as she recruited her crew.  You didn’t join us until she was well past the darkest part, but this trip to Alchera has thrown her right back to where she was when she first boarded the SR2.  Let me tell you, I have a thing or two to tell Admiral Hackett when we get back to the Citadel!”

 

“Doctor, while I am grateful that feel me trustworthy to hear these things, I fail to see what your purpose is.  Shepard was upset tonight, and now I understand her reasons better than I did.  Tomorrow I will talk with her again, once she has had a chance to sleep and regain her composure.”

 

Chakwas sighed.  “Thane, she won’t sleep tonight, and she shouldn’t be alone.  That’s why I was waiting up, hoping I wouldn’t have to talk to you.”

 

“You want me to go back to her?  You know she hates the idea of people watching over her.  She was irritated when I escorted her to her cabin earlier tonight.”

 

The doctor nodded.  “She has this idea that she always has to be in command, can never show weakness in front of anyone.  Her excessive drinking tonight in the mess hall was extremely out of character for her.  Coupled with what happened to her today on Alchera, and I’m very worried about her state of mind right now.”

 

“What happened, Dr. Chakwas?  Both you and EDI have alluded to something out of the ordinary.”

 

“It’s easier if I show you, Thane.  Odds are you’ll have to deal with it in the future.”  She turned to the monitor and brought up a video file.  As she skipped through to the time she wanted, Thane realized he was looking at Garrus’ suit camera feed.  He saw the scattered remains of a large spacecraft on a rock and snow covered landscape.  He caught glimpses of Shepard’s white suit amongst the wreckage.  “Here,” the doctor said as she set it to normal speed.

 

Thane watched in confusion at first.  He heard panicked breathing and almost incomprehensible words, and realized he was hearing the comm recording.   _‘Shepard?’_ Garrus asked.  The camera panned away from a frozen body to find Shepard.  He heard the turian shout her name again, this time in panic as he started lunging clumsily forward in the low grav.  Thane felt a growing horror as he saw Shepard flailing on the ground, obviously trying to disengage her helmet.  He was with Garrus as he pinned one arm underneath his knee.  Shepard’s helmet was opaqued against the sun and he was desperate to see her face.  Garrus must have felt the same way, because he reached out and touched the button to lift the gold-impregnated shield.  Thane’s heart clenched when he saw the expression of pure terror on her face, her eyes open wide and unseeing as she screamed over and over through the comm.  Chakwas reached out and killed the video.  

 

“It took Garrus over twenty minutes to calm her down.  You don’t need to see the rest.  It doesn’t get any better.”

 

Thane looked out the windows into the crew mess, deeply unsettled by what he had seen.  Chakwas’ comments along with seeing the video brought home to him that in spite of his time on the Normandy and even his marriage with Irikah, he had spent most of his life alone.  He had never had long term friendships such as that shared by Shepard and Garrus, which delved deep into the other’s spirit, let alone tried to help someone as hurt as Shepard was.  Irikah had been strong willed and they had had their fights, but always they had come back together.  Their marriage had been normal, peaceful, a sanctuary where he could go to regain his strength and composure.  He had been trained to suppress his emotions for so long, he wasn’t sure he could deal with the strength of Shepard’s.  He had never experienced that stark terror he saw in her face, and to know that it haunted her nights touched his own deeply buried fears.  He saw her late night visits to his cabin in a new light now, as her way of holding back the darkness of the night.  He recalled her words from earlier tonight:   _those are just lies we tell ourselves so we can make it through one more long dark terrifying night._  She wasn’t speaking in the abstract.  She was describing her own hellish nights.

 

He had a sudden flash of insight to his own anger.  Shepard had denied the existence of any gods, any sort of afterlife.  True, she had done it cuttingly, unthinkingly harsh, but her words carried significant weight to him.  She had died, had gone beyond the ocean, yet she claimed no such afterlife exists.  Who should he believe?  The priests of his homeworld, or the woman who had the direct experience?  What if she was right?  Then everything he believed in his entire life was a lie, and he would never see Irikah again.  When he passed from this life, he would not be waiting for Shepard as he had promised.  The thought of it pressed on his chest like an oppressive weight, denying him breath.  Was this the darkness she carried within her?  

 

He didn’t realize his fist was clenched tight until Chakwas laid her hand over his.  She gave him a pitying look as if she knew what was playing through his mind.  “Shepard’s not as strong as she would have us believe, Thane.  She shouldn’t be alone tonight, and I can’t think of anyone better suited to the task than you.  Are you willing?”

 

Was he able to stand up to that?  He had been alone for so long that he wasn’t sure he was capable of forming the depth of caring he sensed Shepard needed.   Irikah had been teaching him to reach out to others, to be a father and husband, but she had been taken from him too soon.  He had relied heavily on Irikah for her emotional strength.  She had been his support when he worried that he couldn’t provide for his family or be the father Kolyat deserved.  Irikah needed to care for him.  This time, the tables were flipped, and it was Shepard who needed him to care about her.

 

He thought about all that she had shared with him, all she had done for him.  But it wasn’t simple gratitude that informed his thoughts and feelings.  He cared about her deeply, would do anything to make her happy.  His body responded to hers eagerly.  While she hadn’t affected him as suddenly as Irikah had, nevertheless, she had drawn him to her deeply and just as permanently.  “I am, doctor,” he said firmly.

 

“Good,” she said with a tired smile.  “Now go on up there so I can stop worrying.”

 

He nodded and left on silent feet.  The elevator was waiting for him with doors open.  He didn’t even have to press the button for the Loft.  “Thank you, EDI.”

 

“The Commander’s door is still unlocked,” she told him.

 

That made it easier.  At least he didn’t have to sneak in via the ventilation system.  It was a very tight fit on this deck.  He pressed the door chime to give her some warning but didn’t wait for her acknowledgment.  He was unsure of the reaction he’d get, so he entered slowly, looking to see where she was.  Just inside, he stopped, every finely honed sense on high alert.  The formerly neat room was a disaster.

 

The cabin was dark and the only light came from the fish tank along the wall, but he could still make out the destruction that had been wrought in his absence. The desk had been swept clear of everything except a heavy combat knife stabbed into the dense desk material.  The monitor lay shattered on the floor along with a stack of data pads.  The chair was lying on its side, and Thane saw scratches on the thick polycarbonate glass that housed her model ship collection.  The sheets had been ripped off the bed and lay carelessly on the floor.  Looking around, he wasn’t sure if there was anything left to destroy.  He suspected that only the fact that the furniture was fixed to the floor spared it from destruction.  A thick alcoholic scent filled the room.  Looking around, he traced the source to a large dark splotch covered with glittering shards on the carpet near the fish tank.  “Shepard?” he inquired as he headed toward the stairs.  

 

There was no answer.  Another scent, all too familiar, reached his nose:  human blood.  “Shepard!” he cried out as he leapt down the stairs, only to stop short at the sight that greeted him.  She was sitting on the foot of the bed, head bowed so that her hair swung forward and hid her face, elbows resting on her thighs.  There was blood on her hands, but what truly alarmed him was that she held her pistol in her hands, dangling between her knees.  

 

“Siha, talk to me,” he said quietly.  He recognized that posture, and it scared him to the core.  It was the same way he had sat, pistol in hand, after he finished off the final merc responsible for Irikah’s murder.  He had returned to Kahje, seen his son happy with his uncle, aunt, and cousins, and been unable to see a place for himself in that life.  He had retired to a seedy hotel with a pistol in his hand to debate the merits of continuing a life that seemed to have no meaning any longer.  Ultimately, it had been his faith that saved him.  If Arashu saw fit to change the course of his life, he would abide by her wishes as long as he drew breath.  He would make the galaxy a brighter place for his son and all the other children out there.  Shepard, however, had vehemently denied any such faith only a short time ago.  What would save her?

 

He moved cautiously across the floor until he was close enough to touch her.  "Siha, give me your pistol."  She didn't move or say anything as he took it from her unresisting fingers.  He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the safety was still on.  He backed up and placed it on the stairs behind him.

 

In a monotone voice, she finally spoke.  “I’m not planning on using it on myself, Thane.”

 

“I’m glad to hear it.  Still, I prefer to place it out of the way for now.”  He knelt on the floor next to her and pushed her hair back to examine her face.  She continued to stare at the floor in front of her.  Aside from the empty look in her red-rimmed and bloodshot eyes, she seemed undamaged.  He turned her hands over and saw numerous cuts on her fingertips.  “What happened to your hands?”

 

“Didn’t want to leave a mess for Gardner,” she said with a minute gesture to the broken glass on the floor.  

 

He traced circles on her wrist with his thumb, hoping the familiar gesture would bring her comfort as it had so often in the past, but he was at a loss how to proceed otherwise.  He could think of no words appropriate to the situation.  He envied Garrus and the way the turian always seemed to have a glib reply for every situation, but Chakwas had seemed to think he was the one she needed.

 

“You have always been concerned for others.  It is part of what makes you such a great leader.”  The words felt forced to him.  She didn’t need flattery, but he was afraid to say something that would make the situation worse.  She didn’t respond, and the silence grew heavy between them.  He tried again.  “Siha, I would offer you my support in any way you need.”

 

“Why did you come back, Thane?”  She still refused to look at him, instead staring blankly at the floor.

 

He didn’t feel comfortable telling her that it was at Dr. Chakwas’ request.  Instead, he answered with what he saw as the deeper truth.  “It was wrong of me to leave you when you were in pain.”  She flinched and tried to draw away, but he continued the gentle stroking of her wrist.  He saw it for what it was.  The same reaction a wounded animal had, to hide and lick its wounds until it was recovered.  He reached up with his other hand and brushed her hair back again.  “I think I misunderstood the ‘human-ness’ of your reactions, but that is no excuse for leaving the woman I love alone and hurting.”

  
“You were mad.”

 

“I was...unsettled by your revelations and caught unprepared by your accusation.  I should not have allowed my emotions to dictate my actions to such an extent.”

 

“I was out of line.”  She still spoke in a heavy monotone, as if the words were dragged from her unwilling.

 

He sighed and gave careful consideration to his next words.  “I have spoken of Irikah to no one in ten years besides you and Kolyat.  Kolyat is eager to hear anything of his mother.  You...”  He broke off as unexpected feelings of guilt and remorse rose up to momentarily choke him.  “You echoed the words spoken by my hanar handlers.  The memories were difficult to process.  For a while, I was young again, in love, angry, confused.  I was unable to separate the moments of my life.”

 

For the first time, she glanced at him.  “Tell me what happened to her.”

 

Now it was Thane’s turn to flinch.  She wanted him to relive the darkest memory of his life?  He wondered if it was revenge for what he had thrust upon her.  “You want to know?”

 

She nodded, no expression on her face.

 

He took a deep breath and slowly let it out.  He prayed he could keep from sliding entirely into those bitter memories.  “They came for her while I was carrying out a contract.  I didn’t realize until I was off planet that I had been set up, the contract was fake.  I returned as quickly as I could but it was too late.  The door was unlocked...”  Darkness rose to swallow him whole, dragging him back to that horrific day, as fresh as if it had happened only moments ago.   _“Furniture askew, scent of ozone and blood.  I draw my pistol, move silently through the house.  I am too late.  She lies in middle of the floor, body bruised and cut, fingers broken, violated, pistol shot to the gut, making her die slowly and in pain.  My beautiful angel, destroyed because of me.  I gather her in my arms.  I am lost without her.”_  

 

Gasping for air, he wrenched himself out of the memory.  He blinked rapidly before he realized the reason he couldn’t see was the tears flowing from his eyes.  He felt Shepard’s hand on his cheek, warm and soft, wiping away the tears with her thumb.  

 

“Why did you go after the mercs?” she whispered.

 

“How could I not?” he choked out.  “They destroyed the only thing that was good in my life!  They had to pay!”

 

“Why not leave justice to your gods?”

 

“They had to be stopped.  They would have gone on to hurt others.”

 

“Is that the real reason?  Or is that what you told yourself afterward, to justify what you did?”  Her questions, soft though they were, were remorseless as they dug into the wounds of his past.

 

“No,” he hissed.  “They deserved to die for what they did to my Irikah.”  Unthinking, his hands clenched on her thighs.  He wanted so badly to hurt them all over again.  It was as if all the intervening years, the untold hours of meditation and prayer had never happened.  “Why are you doing this to me, Shepard?” he cried out. 

 

“Don’t you see, Thane?  You can’t depend on beings that don’t exist in our corporeal universe.  Even if your gods exist, they couldn’t help you then.  No gods will help me now.  If I start to believe in them, against all rational evidence, then I might be tempted to relax, to take the easy way out.  If I fail, I can say it was fated to be, that the gods willed it, and I would be absolved of my failure.  I can’t let that happen.  I won’t,” she promised.  Her thumb still stroked softly over his cheek, the soothing motion a jarring counterpoint to the turmoil in his heart and head.

 

He looked up into her eyes, searching for any hint of life in her empty eyes.   “Do you really, honestly believe you are so alone in this life, siha?  Look around you.  Every person on this ship is here because of you, sworn to follow you into battle, into death if need be.  Do you think they would do that for anyone?”

 

She glanced away, considering the empty helmet on the coffee table.  He could almost see her thoughts.  She was afraid of losing her crew again, maybe even more than she was afraid of dying.  If she could hold herself apart from everyone else, it wouldn’t hurt so much when they died.  He captured her hand in his.  “Listen to me, siha.  You are strong.  The strongest person I have ever known.  But strong does not mean unbreakable.  You must learn to trust us, to let us bear some of the burden.”

 

“I’m already broken, Thane.  I warned you long ago on the Citadel that I’m not whole,” she whispered.  “Now do you see what you’re getting into?”

 

“An avatar of Arashu will never be meek or untouched by the events of her past.  The fires that forge her leave their marks, but in the end, make her all the stronger.  Just answer one question for me, completely honestly.”  He waited until curiosity made her look at him.  “Do you love me?”

 

Finally her expression softened and warmth came into her eyes.  “Yes, Thane.  With all of my being.”

 

“Then it matters not how broken you are.  I will be with you always.  I will pick up the pieces and put them together.  Tonight and every time you need it.”

 

Tears spilled from her eyes and her chin trembled.  “I don’t understand you, Thane.  You’re always around when I’m at my worst, but it doesn’t deter you.  I will be cold and heartless in this war.  I intend to destroy the Collectors, then the Reapers, and I’ll do whatever I have to in order to accomplish that.  If it means killing people, or letting them die, I’ll do it if it’s for the greater good.  It’s the cold calculus of war, and there’s nothing good or holy about that.”

 

“You are uniquely suited to this situation, siha.  That is why the gods,” he laid a finger over her lips before she could protest, “brought you back.  You are the sword standing between civilization and those who would destroy it.  It is a sword’s nature to be sharp and cut the unwary.  Do not apologize for being who you are.”

 

Thane pulled her off the bed and onto his lap on the floor.  He crooned low in his chest, a soothing sound he had used in the past to comfort Kolyat as a babe.  He stroked her hair as he continued.  “You and I both know what it means to be warriors, to stand and protect others no matter the cost to yourself.  We both know the price of failure.  But you don’t have to stand alone.”

 

Her voice was choked with tears.  "You mean it?"

 

His arms enfolded her with the promise of warmth and security.  He spoke into her ear, and the low rumbling vibrated through her.  "I swore that I am yours, siha, body and soul.  I will always be with you to lend you strength when yours falters."  

 

She buried her face against his shoulder.  “I died, Thane,” she cried, the sobs making her back heave up and down.  “There was only blackness until they brought me back.  No God.  No heaven.  There was nothing!  And when I came back, they had to change so much.  They...they violated my corpse, touched every part of me.  They’re still watching me.  It revolts me in every cell of my being, but at the same time, I'm alive again.  I don't want to lose that."

 

He crushed her to him tightly, knowing she needed that.  "Then live, siha.  Live fiercely in every moment.  I will fight for every moment to stay at your side.  And when the time comes to cross the sea, know in your heart that l will be waiting for you.  You will never be alone."  There was a ragged catch in his voice that made her look up.  His dark eyes were shining with his own unshed tears.  He put a finger under her chin, tilted her face up, and pressed a soft, loving kiss against her lips.  

 

"Thane," she gasped out, "please... please don't leave.  I'm so tired of being alone.  Only if for tonight."  

 

"Tonight and every other night you ask, siha," he promised.  

 

She wrapped her arms around his waist and held him tight.  Two lost and broken souls connected under the stars, and in each other’s embrace they found acceptance and the beginning of healing.

 

* * *

 

 

Thane drifted into consciousness, lulled into complacency by the solid warmth of Shepard pressed up against him.  Her head was tucked underneath his chin, and he had his arm wrapped protectively around her.  He had waited until she was asleep before lifting her into bed and rescuing the least damaged sheet from the floor.  It wasn’t how he imagined their first time in bed together, but there was something fragile and precious about this morning, as if they had both been through the fire and come out...if not unscathed, at least not permanently damaged.  

 

He felt her shift and start to jerk awake in response to his unfamiliar presence next to her.  He hugged her tightly and rumbled quietly in her ear.  “Shh, relax, siha.”  She fell back into a boneless slumber and nestled closer, slipping her leg between his.  He stroked her back, enjoying this feeling of peace and closeness that he had never thought to experience again.  He gave silent thanks to the gods once again for the woman in his arms.  Whatever it took, he would stay by her side.

 

He felt her tense up again, slowly this time.  She was waking up.  “Good morning,” he whispered in her ear.

 

“No, it isn’t.”  She tucked herself closer against him, almost as if she were trying to hide.  He couldn’t imagine why, so he asked her.  “I behaved abominably last night,” she said.  “I’m so sorry.”

 

He kissed the top of her head.  “You were hurting.  I unknowingly prodded the hurt and made it worse.  I can hardly be upset because you lashed out.”

 

“But you were so mad.”

 

“I have told you before, I am no saint.  I experience every emotion you do.  I simply have more practice holding them in check.  In any case, I am no longer angry.  You did not say anything I had not heard before.  I was caught off guard in that it was you that uttered it, but I understand why you said what you did.”

 

“I’m sorry for what I said.  About...her.”

 

“Ah.”  His fingers fluttered at the back of her neck, toying with the fine strands of hair there.  The memory of her words still triggered feelings of pain and anger that echoed down through the years, heedless of his attempts to purge them through meditation.  He sensed she didn’t need a quick, empty acceptance of her apology.  “With eidetic memories, not only words, but scents, touch, and emotions can all be brought back in an avalanche if one is unwary.  I will never apologize for loving her, and know that those feelings are as strong today as they were when we married.  But drell cannot live in the past, Shepard.  You have awoken me from my battle sleep.  You are another siha.  You are precious to me, and I will allow no one to impugn my love for you.”

 

She sighed and pressed herself closer against him, changing his awareness of her from comforting warmth to desirable female.  “I have a bad habit of spouting off at inappropriate times, but I promise you that I’ll do better.”

 

He kissed her forehead again and tried to ignore the rising clamor of his body.  “Suppose we agree to forgive each other for our words and actions last night?”

 

“Done,” she agreed immediately.  “Hey, wait.  You took off your coat but not your boots?”

 

“It was too much effort to remove them after I got you in bed,” he said solemnly, but he couldn’t keep his expression completely serious.  

 

She stared at him for a moment, then frowned.  “Well, next time, boots off in my bed, mister.”  

 

His smile grew obvious.  “I promise.   _Next time_ , no boots in your bed.”  He was rewarded with a flush of pink on her cheeks.  He leaned in and kissed her on the lips, putting all the latent heat from the last few days into it, a promise of things to come.  “You should get up.  I’ve never known you to skip breakfast, yet you are running perilously close this morning.”

 

“Are you going to make it worth my while to skip waffles?” she asked with a skeptically raised eyebrow.

 

“I will lie here and tell you how magnificent you are, but if you mean in a physical sense, then no.  I have made my vow and will abide by it.”

 

“Well, unless you plan on doing something to me, no lazing around in my bed.”  

 

“Then I shall endeavor to be less lazy,” he said, although he made absolutely no move to do so, content to lie there and feel her pressed against him for every moment he could.  He knew he was playing with fire, but it felt too good to pass up.  He was caught by surprise when she rolled on top of him.  She leaned down and kissed him, starting slowly, then urging him to open his lips so her tongue could gently probe and explore.  One hand wound around his neck, stroking his spine and teasing the frill near the back of his head.  Her hips rocked against his in an unmistakable motion, bringing him to full alertness.  The heat between her legs soaked through the thin sheet and layers of clothing that separated them.  Before he could quite stop himself, his arms were sliding down her back to hold her body firmly against his.  It was with great strength of will that he didn’t press up against her, although his entire body was crying out for it.

 

“I will break that reserve of yours, Thane Krios,” she vowed, eyes glittering with unrestrained heat and desire.  “You should have run when you had the chance.”  She nipped at his lower lip as she pushed her hips down one final time before she slid off of him agonizingly slowly and headed toward the bathroom.  “Now get out of my bed, mister.”

 

Thane smiled as he rolled out of bed and followed a safe distance behind.  He had never been prey in this sort of game before, and he found it most exhilarating.  

 

Down on the crew deck, a tired Dr. Chakwas found the energy for a smile when she saw Thane and Shepard enter the mess together.  Shepard looked comically depressed when she discovered she had slept through breakfast and had to settle for a bowl of cold cereal and a protein bar.  She watched Thane brew tea for them both and saw the tender way he touched her hand when he handed her the mug and how Shepard unconsciously leaned into him.  

 

She did so love being right.

 

* * *

 

A/N: Thank you to Orchidellia on ff dot net, my beta reader!


	24. The Ties That Bind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard goes to meet someone dear to her heart.

When the Normandy settled into the Illium port, Shepard found herself uncharacteristically nervous.  For once, instead of being the last one off, she was waiting impatiently for the docking clamps to engage and the airlock to cycle.  Several of her specialists were with her, anxious for a couple days leave in Nos Astra.  She scanned the busy port, but the one she wanted to see was easy to spot.  

 

He stood a full head above most of the asari, with dark brown hair that was stylishly untidy and probably took at least twenty minutes to get to look that way.  He had slightly olive skin, hazel eyes, and a strong jaw covered with a day’s worth of stubble.

 

“John!” she shouted, and he turned to spot her, waving wildly.

 

She ran through the crowd of passengers and luggage trolleys and tackled him with a hug.  He enveloped her in a bear hug in return, lifting her up so her feet dangled off the ground.  

 

“I’ve missed you so much!” he said with a quick peck on her cheek.  “What the hell have you been up to?”  He set her down on the ground as her friends and crewmates came alongside, most of them expressing open curiosity.  

 

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she said only half-jokingly.  “Everyone, this is John, my baby brother.  John, this is everyone.”  Up close, the resemblance was more pronounced.  John’s complexion was darker, and he was much more muscular, but both siblings had the same lean rangy build and facial shape and each had that uncommon charisma that compelled you to pay attention to them.

 

He kept one arm draped over Shepard as he turned to look at the strange collection of people she now called friends.  “Pleased to meet you, everyone,” he said with a brilliant smile.  “Hey, Garrus, good to see you again.  And Tali.  How’s it going?”  

 

“Oh, I forgot you guys met once before, at that whole Savior of the Citadel ceremony,” she said as she turned to introduce the rest of the group.   She missed the pained look that passed between John and Garrus.  They’d also met at her funeral.  

 

John’s gaze swept over the others, coming to rest on Miranda in her typical black form-hugging catsuit.  He walked over and took her hand, bringing it to his lips for an old-fashioned kiss.  “You, my dear, must be the amazing and efficient Miranda, the one who keeps my sister from getting sidetracked with petty details.  I’ve heard so much about you.”

 

Miranda narrowed her eyes at Shepard, who just grinned back.  “You wanted me to write to my family,” she said impudently.  “I had to tell him something about everyone.”  

 

John still held on to her hand.  “I’ve talked my sister into coming to the show tonight. Tell me that you’ll come as well?  I always perform better when I have someone to show off for,” he said with a mischievous wink.

 

“Show?” Miranda asked, clearly confused.

 

John put his hand over his heart in mock distress.  “You wound me,” he said to Shepard.  “You mean you haven’t already invited them to your baby brother’s scintillating performance tonight?  My dearest lady,” he said to Miranda, “I am one of the principal dancers for the West Canada Dance Company, the first one from Earth to be invited to perform here in Nos Astra, and we’ve already received rave reviews.  Come, and I promise I’ll make it worth your time.”  He ended by brushing his lips over her hand again as he swept his other arm out into a graceful half bow in front of her.  “All of you must come.  I insist.  Front row seats, and you can join us backstage afterward.”

 

“Of course they’ll come,” Shepard announced as she looked at those of her crew fortunate, or unfortunate, enough to be standing near her.  Jack glared and was about to object when John swept his arm around her waist.  

 

“And you, my sweet, absolutely must come.  Look at these magnificent tattoos.  You will be the envy of half the dancers tonight, you know.  One of the rules of the company,” he sighed.  “No body modification of any sort.  You look like you should be a dancer yourself.  Maybe we can talk you into practicing with us afterward, hm?” he asked with a charming smile.  Shepard wasn’t very surprised when Jack sputtered but otherwise didn’t object.  Her brother had always been the charming one, able to make friends instantly no matter where he went.  He simply refused to accept the idea that someone might not want to be his friend, but he was so sincere and cheerful about it that almost no one could resist.  

 

Shepard was in a good mood and winked at Thane, who had stayed near the back of the group with Garrus.  Her two snipers had become good friends over the last few weeks, with Garrus finally getting over his initial distrust of the assassin.  

 

Shepard and her brother extracted promises from everyone to be at the theatre later tonight before she finally excused them to their own devices for the rest of the day.  She smiled at Thane and arranged to meet him later that afternoon.  Both were intensely private people and neither was quite ready for a public display of affection, especially in front of the Normandy crew, but the look of heat he gave her before he headed out with Garrus was enough to make her suck in her breath.  She did her best to turn it into a normal exhalation as she tucked her hand into her brother’s arm and smiled brightly at him.  “Let’s go get some lunch.”

 

An hour later, they were relaxing in a fancy restaurant at the top of a high rise tower, looking out over the bustling expanse of Nos Astra.  Shepard had a glass of water; after her colossal bender that dark night after Alchera, she had finally decided she needed to clean up her act for a while.  Her brother was sticking to tea.  It happened to be the same blend that she and Thane usually drank of an evening.  “Okay, sis, level with me.  Why the hell are you working for Cerberus now?”

 

She sank back in her chair and mulled that she was starting to feel like Thane, answering the same uncomfortable questions from people who didn’t seem willing to listen to her side.  “Because they’re the only ones willing to do something about the Reaper threat,” was her short answer, challenging him to disbelieve her.  

 

He didn’t.  “They why isn’t the Alliance doing something about it?  Or the Council?  They’ve got all those resources.  They have access to the same data Cerberus does.  Doesn’t it strike you as odd that the Council is denying any truth to what you say you’re doing?  Who do you expect people to believe?  The Council or some little human terrorist organization?  They’re almost as bad as the Earth First group.”

 

She forced herself to relax, otherwise the fine crystal glass in her hand would shatter instantly.  “The Council isn’t doing anything because we’re humans.  We’re the johnny come latelys to the galaxy, and they don’t trust us yet.  They don’t care about empty human colonies when they’ve got multiple established colonies and trade groups across the mass relay network.”  
  
“Well, what about what’s-his-name...Udina?  He should be looking out for us.”

  
She shook her head.  “He’s the biggest ass I’ve ever met.”  She stopped to consider the turian Councilor.  “Well, close, anyway.  But he hates me.  He can’t control me, and I’m saying things that go counter to his agenda.  He wanted to vote to take away my Spectre status, but couldn’t because of the political implications back home and across the galaxy of revoking the first human Spectre.  Wouldn’t have set a good example for future human Spectres, would it?” she said sarcastically as she finished her water.

 

“So what are you going to do?”

 

“I’m going to stop the Collectors and bring back the evidence and shove it in their faces.  I’m going to make so much noise that they can’t ignore me.  I’ve got plans, John.  I know what the various races want, and I’m in a position to trade it to them for their cooperation.”

 

He looked intrigued.  “What?”

 

She smiled and shook her head.  “Sorry, little brother.  Need to know only.”

 

He frowned at her, but soon gave it up. His ebullient nature wouldn’t let him stay upset for long.  “I talked to Mom the other day,” he started, lips twisting in a wry smile as she twitched in worry.  “She really wanted to be here to see you.”

 

She shuddered.  “Ugh.  That’s the last thing I need.  Trying to save the galaxy and have my mom haranguing me about what I’m up to.  That’s why I don’t respond to many of her emails, you know.”

 

He winced.  “Yes, she’s told me all about it.  I wish you two would get along better.”

 

“We get along just fine as long as we’re not in the same space.  She keeps trying to run my life.  I outgrew that when I was thirteen.”

 

“She does the same thing to me.  Just ignore the requests for grandkids and have a conversation.”

 

She snorted.  “If she wants grandkids, she’d better pin her hopes on you.”

 

He grinned.  “I don’t know.  I saw you making googly eyes at that drell earlier.”

 

She sputtered.  “I was not making ‘googly eyes’!”

 

“Oh yes, you were.  It was cute, seeing you all sweet and loving and thinking no one noticed,” he chuckled.  

 

Shepard sank into her seat in embarrassment.  Oh no, what if she had made googly eyes?  Garrus would never let her live it down.  Thank goodness Joker hadn’t been there.  “Yeah, well, in case you missed your basic biology lessons, there’s not going to be any grandkids out of this relationship.”

 

He answered in a falsetto tone to mimic their mother.  “You can always adopt, dear.”

 

She put her hand over her face and sighed.  “Don’t you start.  Besides, the way you cat around, how do we know you don’t already have a dozen kids scattered all over the place?”

 

“Because I’m smart enough to use protection, or did you need a remedial biology lesson yourself, sis?” he smirked.  “Besides, can you see me being a dad?”

 

She considered him and shook her head.  “Not really.  Not happily.”

  
He nodded agreement.  “I’m not going to settle down until I can’t dance any longer.  That’s the only thing I truly love.  There’s no room for anything else in my life.”

 

“Like brother, like sister, eh?  Both caught up in our careers?”

 

He shook his head half in regret.  “Like mother, more like. Great role model, hm?  So intent on her career in the Alliance she drags her family from starship to starship, infects you with the same desire.  Why do you think I raised such a fuss about going back to Earth to live with dad?  I didn’t want to end up like the two of you.  Guess I did anyway, but at least I’m not getting shot at every day.”

 

“It’s not every day,” she protested, but privately she agreed with him.  They were both reflections of their strong-willed mother, except that John had channeled his drive for success and perfectionism into art and dance, while she had been infected with a more patriotic fervor.  

 

“Well, at least send her a vid, would you?  It’s getting annoying being the news feed go-between for you two.”

 

She sighed.  “Fine, fine.  It’s been a month since the last one anyway.”

 

“Good,” he said, perking up.  “Mission accomplished, and I can blame you if you don’t send her something in the next two days.  Hey, I gotta run.  I have a couple things to do before heading to the theatre.  See you after the show.”  He pulled out his credit chit, but she waved it away.  “I’ve got it,” she told him.  She didn’t bother to add that the credits came from a merc she looted on her last mission.  Some things he was better off not knowing.

 

“Fantastic.  Love ya, sis.”  He ruffled her hair, laughing as she glared at him on his way out.  She stayed seated, looking out over the graceful, soaring skyline and tried to think of nothing.  These few minutes of peace she could grab now and then were precious, and she tried to hold on to every single one.  

 

She wondered what Thane was doing, an unconscious smile causing her face to light up.  Maybe she should use her free time this afternoon to find a pleasure shop and purchase a few goodies to ease her growing desire.  Somehow, though, she felt that wouldn’t really do the trick.  She wanted Thane, not just physical release, but that damn drell was made of sterner stuff than she had reckoned on.  

 

He came by her cabin every day to instruct her on the _takats_.  More by choice than necessity, there was a lot of touching involved.  His hand on her stomach to emphasize proper breathing, gliding his hands along her arms such that he was practically embracing her, sliding his leg next to hers to ensure proper foot position.  Somehow, she doubted that his own training had been quite so touchy, but she wasn’t complaining.  Well, she was, but only because all that touching ignited a spark in her from the first moment that went unquenched due to his damned vow to wait to love her until he was convinced she was perfectly healthy again.  Of course, she was already convinced she was healthy enough.  Her hands barely shook anymore, and she was back up to eighty percent in her target practice.  Still an embarrassingly long way from perfection, but much better than when she started.

 

So she tried to take matters into her own hands, so to speak.  He always took his jacket off for practice, and she took advantage of it by running her hands along his back, chest or arms on the pretext of checking to see how a certain stance should be done, but neither one was fooled.  Practice sessions were frequently interrupted with long make out sessions on the couch, or up against the fish tank, or on the desk.  He made kissing an art form, and even though he limited it to her lips, face, neck and occasionally hands, it only made her desperate for more of him.

 

Since that first terrible night, he had continued to sleep in her bed.  The first time, he smiled mischievously as he made a point of removing his boots before climbing under the covers.  When she pouted that he was still clothed, he told her that he daren’t tempt fate that much, and if she wanted him to stay with her, she would stay clothed, too.  She complied, but refused to go to sleep, instead kissing and stroking him in a blatant attempt to make something happen.  He tried telling her to go to sleep, but being who she was, she wouldn’t listen.  Finally he’d had enough and pulled her hard against him, chest to back, and growled in her ear that if she didn’t desist, he would wrap her in her own sheet to make her keep her hands to herself.  Shepard didn’t doubt for an instant that he was bluffing and instantly, albeit grudgingly, settled down.  And that had been their routine every night since.

 

She loved the lighter side that he was finally showing to her.  Outside her cabin, he was still the stoic, calm assassin, albeit much friendlier and more willing to talk to others than when he had first boarded the Normandy.  But in the privacy of her cabin, he relaxed, smiled and laughed more frequently, and was willing to let go of the strict control he had practiced for so much of his life.

 

The waiter came over to ask if she wanted anything else, but she waved him away.  She only wanted to relax a few more moments before the end.  She knew in her bones that it was nearly time to face the Collectors.  In truth, she could be going after the IFF right now, but she felt like she owed herself a mission, so to speak.  She wanted to see her baby brother one last time before she attempted the impossible.  Tomorrow she’d speak with Liara, then the Normandy would head out to grab the IFF.  Aside from that, she only had Kasumi’s request outstanding, but Hock’s party wasn’t for another twelve days.  And then...then it would be time to go through the Omega 4 relay and rain hell down on the Collectors.

 

* * *

 

 

Thank you to Orchidellia at ff dot net, my beta reader!


	25. What Price Information

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard deals with the aftermath of the fight in the Shadow Broker's ship.

The mood aboard the Normandy was an odd mix of suppressed excitement and subdued worry.  The crew knew that Shepard had gone aboard the Shadow Broker’s ship, but not the reason why nor were they aware of who she met there.  All they knew was that one way or another, Shepard had done the impossible once again and brought the Shadow Broker around to her cause.  Her victory had come at a cost, though.

 

The Commander was currently sitting in Med Bay at the side of her best friend, who was lying unconscious on one of the beds with a distressing amount of medical equipment hooked up to him.  She laid her hand gently over his, not wanting to cause any additional pain, even if he was unconscious.  “I’m sorry, Garrus.  I’m so sorry.  Please just wake up so you can yell at me, okay?”  

 

Guilt pooled through her as she recalled the violent confrontation with the Shadow Broker.  Right after the yahg had threatened to turn Garrus in for the bounty on Archangel, everything went to hell.  Shepard fired to take the initiative, but the long fight through the Shadow Broker’s ship had worn her down more than she had realized.  Her first shots went wide, an unpardonable error, especially as that gave the yahg time to throw the desk at Garrus.  Even with his armor on, he crumpled under the brutal assault, and she couldn’t afford to spare any more attention for him if she wanted to live.  

 

The fight lasted forever.  The yahg was strong and well rested.  Shepard and Liara had fought their way through dozens of guards, and they were both tired.  She fell back on her favorite way of solving problems:  throwing hundreds of rounds at it.  But it had taken Liara’s biotics to pull down the ceiling and trap the yahg long enough for Shepard to be able to put enough high velocity ammo into it to finish it off.  She sincerely hoped the rest of the yahg never made it off their planet.  They made the krogans look like puppy dogs.

 

She’d run to Garrus’ side as quickly as possible.  He was unconscious and having trouble breathing.  Ironically, it was Feron who had been able to point them to a well-stocked med bay near his former torture cell.  Liara had worked to stabilize Garrus while Shepard went for Chakwas.  Finally, they had the turian back on the Normandy, and Chakwas seemed confident of his recovery, but Shepard still blamed herself for Garrus’ condition.  If only her first shots hadn’t missed the mark, maybe the yahg wouldn’t have been able to throw the desk.  If only she had been faster or stronger, they could have finished him off sooner and gotten Garrus into Med Bay that much faster.  If only, if only...

 

She hadn’t even wanted to go into battle yet.  She knew her reflexes were still slowed, but after Liara had told her that her friend Feron was still alive and being tortured by the Shadow Broker, she couldn’t in good conscience wait a single more day to attempt a rescue.  The only good things to come out of this whole debacle were that Liara was the new Shadow Broker and firmly on her side, and Cerberus didn’t know who the new Shadow Broker was, or even that a change had taken place.

 

“Why don’t you go get dinner and take a rest, Shepard?”  Chakwas patted the young Commander on the shoulder.  “I’ll let you know the minute anything changes.  He’s stable and resting now.  It’s just a matter of time.  Go on.”  The doctor shooed her out of the Med Bay, refusing to take no for an answer.  

 

She stood in the hallway at a momentary loss.  Gardner wasn’t ready to serve dinner yet, and she didn’t know what else to do.  She thought about going down to the cargo deck to either their improvised shooting range or the workout area, but neither appealed.  She knew that in either case, she’d just start thinking about the battle with the yahg and her concentration would be off.  She needed time away from the incident to process what had happened.  Maybe she should return to the Shadow Broker’s ship and talk with Liara.  She knew her friend would be busy trying to integrate herself into the Broker’s operations, but she needed to talk. She fired a quick message off to her via omni-tool and got back an almost immediate invitation to come back aboard the Shadow Broker’s ship.

 

There was some unfinished business that had been niggling at the back of her mind for a while, so a quick detour through the Normandy' cargo deck was in order before she headed to Liara's new ship.  The bodies were gone, but the remaining staff hadn’t had time to finish cleaning up the gore and blood yet.  Shepard spared a moment to be grateful she didn’t have to deal with Liara’s particular staffing problems; she had enough of her own.  As she entered the inner sanctum, she saw that Liara and Feron had been busy cleaning up the damage, but bits of glass still crunched under her boot heels as she crossed the room.  A shiver of anxiety and guilt passed through her as she thought back to the battle here less than four hours ago.  Unconsciously, she sought the comfort of her SMG in its holster at her back.  She had shed her armor, but she wasn’t comfortable enough to come back on this ship unarmed.  

 

“Shepard!”  Liara crossed the room to give her a strong hug before pulling back to look at her.  “How is he?”

 

“Still unconscious, but Chakwas says he’ll recover.  He didn’t need surgery.  The medi gel seems to be doing the job.  He’ll probably be off duty for a week or so, though.”  

 

Liara led her to small sitting area and offered her a drink, which she gratefully accepted.  She took a sip and nearly spit it out. “Bleah! Liara, this tastes like frog spit!  What the hell is it?”

 

Her friend reached for the bottle while trying and failing to conceal a smile.  “Agairg, from Sur’Kesh.”

 

“Ugh, that explains it,” she replied while surreptitiously trying to scrub the foul taste from her tongue.  That’s what she got for accepting a drink after she’d decided to try and cut back.

 

“Sorry.  It’s not like we’ve had time to inventory the stocks of consumables yet,” her friend replied with an apologetic shrug.

  
Shepard stretched her legs out in front of her.  “Eh, don’t worry about it.  I came to see you, not your bar.”

 

“So I gathered.  Was there something in particular you wanted to discuss, Shepard?”

 

She gathered her thoughts for a moment, then shrugged.  “I was gonna bitch about how I let Garrus down, but then I knew you’d just console me with logic and all that.  How about we skip ahead to me asking you about all of this?”  She circled her hand to indicate the entire Shadow Broker’s ship and operation.

 

Liara smiled her understanding of her friend’s mental state.  “You accomplished the mission, Shepard, and so much more.  When we came here, I only wanted to free Feron.  Now I’m the Shadow Broker.  It’s still hard to comprehend.”

 

“Speaking of Feron, how’s he doing?”

 

Now Liara looked sad.  “It’s too soon to tell.  Two years of captivity and intermittent torture are going to be hard to get over, if he ever does.  I told him I would get him to Kahje if he wanted, but he said he’d rather stay here for now.  I think he’s wants time to heal in peace and privacy, and I can give him that here.”

 

“I hope he recovers.  I owe both of you more than I can ever repay.”

 

Liara laughed.  “Don’t worry about that, Shepard.  I’ve suddenly become fabulously wealthy beyond my wildest dreams.  I’ve only looked into a fraction of the investments the former Shadow Broker had, but he was very astute and had his fingers in numerous pies across every system in the galaxy, it seems.”

 

Shepard winked at her.  “So does that mean you’ll cut me in for a percentage?  After all, I’m the one who helped you get here.”

 

“Absolutely, Shepard,” Liara nodded.  “I have a feeling you’ll need it.  I’ll set up the accounts for you so that Cerberus can’t touch them and send you the access information.”

 

Shepard was taken aback.  She had been joking, but Liara was completely serious.  “Ummm, Liara...”

 

“No, Shepard.  I know what you’re going to say, so don’t say it.  As I said, you’ll need it.  I intend to devote the full resources of this network to your battle.”  Liara stood to retrieve a data pad and handed it over to Shepard.  “Here.  I ran a priority search on you in the Shadow Broker’s archives.  This is everything he had on you and everyone related to you.  Including your crew.”

 

Shepard’s expression darkened.  “I was worried when he mentioned the bounty on Archangel.”

 

Liara nodded.  “It’s not just Garrus.  He’s got data on everyone on the Normandy, both your specialists and your normal crew.  I glanced through it.  The Illusive Man really did set you up with the best people he could find for your crew.”

 

Shepard shrugged.  “I’m not surprised.  He’s the kind of man who has the money and power to get whatever he wants.  Just hope he’s not too upset when I take it away from him.’

 

Liara lifted one elegant eyebrow in question.  Her friend chuckled.  “Not yet, Liara.  I still have to play my part until we get through with the Collectors.  I think that you becoming the Shadow Broker may have just upped my odds, though.  You willing to play along?”

 

“Didn’t I just promise the entirety of the Shadow Broker’s network to your cause, Shepard?”

 

“Good.  I’m going to leave some data with you to crunch.  I think you’ll find it interesting enough to look at even though I know you’re busy with all this stuff.”  At her friend’s questioning glance, Shepard continued.  “I’ve been working with EDI, but I know anything she works on goes directly to the Illusive Man and Cerberus.  I’ve been trying to make sense of the images stuck in my head by that damn Prothean beacon.  I think I might know the locations of some other Prothean archives, Liara.”  Her voice pitched higher with excitement.  “If that’s the case, I want to get you or one of your agents to one of those archives before Cerberus has a chance to get there.”

 

Liara was sitting straight up, hands clenched on her knees.  “An untouched archive?  Shepard, do you know what that means?”

 

“Hell, yeah, Liara.  We know the Protheans were close to finding a way to defeat the Reapers.  I’m hoping that they managed to put that information in the archives for the next cycle to find.  And I want to make sure that _I_ have that information, not Cerberus.  So, you interested?”

 

Liara stretched her hand out eagerly.  “Very much so.”

 

Shepard grinned.  “Thought so.”  She tapped her omni-tool and brought it up to tag Liara’s, starting a massive download of everything EDI had crunched thus far.  While Liara was engrossed in the data, Shepard decided to look through the information on her crew that the Shadow Broker had collected.  She flopped back on the couch across from Liara and started reading.

 

_Thane_.  When she saw his name, there was no question as to which one she would read first.  She chortled softly when she saw the assessment of his fighting style, particularly against krogans.  Her humor disappeared completely when she read his medical history.  Unconsciously she sat up straighter and clenched the datapad.  He had been on a donor list for a lung transplant and turned it down?  Why?  She didn’t even know such a thing was possible!  How recent was this data?  She checked and was puzzled that it was a decade ago.  Why hadn’t he mentioned this to her?  Would he agree to go back on the transplant list?  So many questions!  Reluctantly, she filed it away to ask him later.  Scrolling through, she noticed a connection to his son, including his employment with both C-sec and the hanar embassy.  Someone was keeping an eye on Kolyat.  Thane would want to know that.

 

Disturbed in a way she couldn’t yet articulate, she flipped through the others.  She whistled when she saw the bounty for Archangel.  No wonder the Shadow Broker had wanted him.  She’d warn Garrus when he woke up, and her guilt squeezed her heart again as she wondered how long that would take.

 

The entry that really made her blood boil was Miranda’s.  At first, her lips twitched in a sad amusement as she deciphered the brunette’s desperate search for the perfect mate and her apparent infertility.  She wondered why her father hadn’t adjusted for that, if he wanted Miranda to carry on his dynasty.  Then she reached the latest entry and read “subject Lawson had a liaison with John Shepard, younger brother of Commander Shepard, when the Normandy landed on Illium.  It was for a single night only.  Unknown at this point if they are continuing to communicate or if they intend to resume their liaison at a later point.”  It noted that they had gone to John’s hotel room in Nos Astra and spent the entire night there.  She was half surprised it didn’t detail exactly what went on between them, but she was thankful.  She didn’t need to know what her baby brother and her XO were doing between the sheets.

 

She put the datapad down and walked over to the shutters to stare out at the storm.  Her thoughts tumbled around as erratically as the lightning storm outside.  Garrus, Thane, the Collectors, the IFF, the damn Prothean relic...each competed with the others for her attention.  One by one, she examined them and set them aside.  Nothing could be done about any of them except for one:  the Prothean relic she had brought on board Liara’s ship.  

 

"Liara, I need your help."  Her friend quirked an eyebrow.  "I have a relic we discovered a while ago.  I brought it over to your ship just now.  I want to try something, and I want you with me when I do."  She couldn't quite suppress the shudder of dread that went through her, and Liara picked up on it at once.

 

"Try what, Shepard?" she asked warily.

 

"Communicate with it."   Her stomach lurched at the thought, but she knew she had to try it.  The Cerberus scientists had mentioned that they'd had some success in getting it to respond to tissue samples.  She didn't have time to experiment inch by inch.  No, she would jump in with both feet as she normally did.  She beckoned Liara to follow her over to the small crate she had brought over.  A slight touch and the crate opened to display the silvery orb.  She heard Liara's breath catch in her throat as soon as she saw it.  Shepard's reaction wasn't so excited.  

 

"What do you plan to do, Shepard?"  

 

"Touch it.  I hope it's something I can communicate with.  Just...if it looks like it's going to scramble my brains, would you try to stop it?"

 

"Are you sure about this?"  Liara looked as worried as Shepard felt.

 

Shepard answered with a shrug.  "Not really.  But I'm planning to go after the Reaper IFF soon, and as soon as we have that, I want to head for the Collectors.  I didn't want to experiment with this on the Normandy, but since we're here, it's now or never."

 

Liara looked around the large open space.  "You want to do it here, or in the bedroom in the back?"

 

Shepard nodded toward the seating area.  "That's as good a place as any."  Suiting action to words, she carried the crate over there and set it on the low table.  She sat down and stared at it, feeling as if she were preparing for a gunfight.  Maybe she was.

 

"Ready?" Liara asked.

 

Shepard nodded as she reached out her hand.  Feeling like she was ready to touch a red hot stove, she winced and closed her eyes as she set her fingers to it.  Nothing.  She opened one eye then the other to peer at the silvery orb.  It was sitting there, completely unchanged.  "Hrmpf.  That was anticlimactic."   She ran her fingers over the silvery surface.  It felt cold and shimmery, as if there was an unseen force field keeping her fingers from actually touching the surface.  She frowned as she reached out her other hand to gingerly rotate it in the crate.  "Any ideas?"

 

Liara shook her head.  "I've never seen, or even read about, a relic like this."  

 

"Well, I was hoping for _something_ to happen," Shepard groused as she stared at the relic as if she could will it to give her the answers.  

 

Liara pulled up her omni-tool and started paging through documents.  "Let me look at that Cerberus report again.  Maybe I can find something."

 

Shepard nodded absently as she continued to stare down the orb.  As Liara immersed herself in the details of the report, she reached out and carefully hefted the orb into her right hand.  When nothing untoward happened, she cradled it in both hands, turning it over and over, looking for something, anything unusual in its polished silvery surface.  She tapped it with a fingernail, and it responded with a dull thud.  She tried scratching it, but her fingernails weren’t nearly strong enough to leave a mark.  She lifted it experimentally; it weighed significantly more than it seemed it should, but it didn’t weigh more than a few kilos.  Too big to put in a pocket, but easy enough to carry around.  She huffed out her breath in annoyance, blowing an errant strand of hair out of the way.  The silver ball misted with her breath.

 

Worms started crawling through her brain, their paths burning with acidic fire.  She screamed, but she didn’t have a body anymore.  There was only her sense of self, which felt like it was rapidly being overwritten with the bloody worm trails, leaving memories of death, destruction, and horrifying change.  She watched in terror and disgust as her friends and family were changed before her eyes. The skin melted off their bodies, leaving red and grey bodies so misshapen they didn’t look human anymore.  Everything was blurry, as if she was seeing it doubled or from two different perspectives.

 

Her former friends started moving toward her, their gaits altered by legs so deformed that they could only stumble like zombies.  They left bloody footprints on the floor as they chased after her in slow motion, arms outstretched to grab her and make her one of them.  She tried to run away, but without a body, she could only watch, rooted to a ground she couldn’t see as they got closer and closer.

 

“It’s not real! It’s not real!” she yelled, even as she cowered away from their grasping hands.  One bloody hand got too close and she knocked it away.  It detached from its arm and spun into the air, trailing nearly invisible wires that connected it back to its grotesque body.  It fell to the floor then started crawling toward her like something out of horror vid.

 

“Not real!  Not real!  Make it stop!” she alternately yelled and pleaded, although she knew not to whom.  Just as the hands reached her, everything stopped.  In the blink of an eye, the scene reset itself and her friends and family were standing just as they were before the change.  The worms crawled through her mind again and she fell to her non-existent knees in pain, clutching her head.  Her eyes felt like two red hot metal spikes were drilling back into her brain, then another two spikes jammed into her head above the first set.  She wanted to claw her eyes out to stop the pain.  

 

Her vision was still blurry but she could see the whole scene start again.  Their skins turned grey and slithered off their bodies to melt into the ground.  Limbs lengthed, distorted.  Eyes turned milky white.  They moaned and teeth fell out to litter the ground.  No, it wasn’t moaning.  They were talking, but without lips and teeth, the words were horribly distorted.  With a shudder, she finally made out the words:  “Please forgive me.”  They were asking forgiveness even as they lurched toward her with the intent of turning her into them!

 

Limbs reknit themselves with the help of cybernetics.  Milky eyes were replaced with glittering constructs of circles and dots.  Slimy, bloody muscles were covered up with organo-metallic scales.  From the back of each head ran a wire, merging together into a cable as thick as her wrist.  The cable disappeared into a ghostly Reaper ship in the distance.  Individual identifies disappeared.  They were all equally remade into monsters, monsters of the Reapers.

 

She turned in place and tried to run, but she was locked into this one point in space.  No matter how much she struggled, she couldn’t move even an inch. Just as before, they closed in around her, grabbing at her, and she just _knew_ they wanted to turn her into them.  Her heart was racing as she looked for an opening, any sort of advantage.  Fingers hooked into her hair, yanking her head backward and pulling her hair out at the roots.  Another hand covered in warm, pliable metal scales grabbed her throat and started to squeeze.  Just as suddenly as before, the hands disappeared and the scene reset itself again.

 

_It’s showing me something!_ She was certain she had triggered the orb.  What was it trying to tell her?  Once again the pathways in her brain blazed bright and sent her convulsing with pain.  The worms were tunneling through her brain, tearing out pieces of her and implanting themselves.  She looked at her friends, and her vision wavered.  They were her friends, but they weren’t human.  They began to change, skin and bodies melting, but this time, when the change was complete, they were the Collectors.  “You’re a Prothean artifact,” she gritted out.  “Showing me what happened to your people.”  The world pulsed a bright yellow.  

 

“I get it.  Your people were changed by the Reapers.  You lost the war.  This is how you’re communicating to the next cycle.”  The pain in her head decreased, letting her get in a breath of air.  That single breath brought a thread of body awareness back to her mind, enough to make her realize she was hunched in a fetal position gasping for air.  With a wrench, she let it go so that she could concentrate on the orb’s message, but the worms were at her again.  They were taking her apart to analyze her thoughts, trying to understand her enough to get their message across.  As a universal translator, it sucked!  

 

Suddenly a warm blue light started coalescing next to her.  She tried to get away from it but still couldn’t move in space.  The light flickered rapidly, then started sliding closer to her until it enveloped her hand, then her arm.  She frantically tried to pull herself free, but the blue light merged into and through her arm and started creeping up toward her shoulder.  She closed her eyes and flinched as the first flickering light licked out over her cheek.  It was warm and friendly.  Concern poured from it.  “Liara?” she asked, half in disbelief, half in hope.

 

Affirmation.  More concern.  A thought picture of Liara kneeling over her body, hands to her head.  Her attention was drawn back to the Collectors advancing on her.  Even though the scene had reset itself twice now, the sense of impending doom and destruction weighed just as heavily as it had the first time.

 

“Enough!”  She threw the thought outward, envisioning her armor closing up around her to protect herself from both the mind worms and the zombie Collectors.  To her relief, it worked!  Not completely, but the pain from the mind scan eased.  There must be some sort of feedback mechanism at work, she reasoned.  She could feel Liara’s thoughts being carried along with hers.  

 

“Show me!” she yelled out loud.  “Did you find a weakness in the Reapers?  How close were you to defeating them?”  She couldn’t bear the thought that the Prothean civilization, the one that everyone revered as so much more advanced, hadn’t been able to come up with anything to defeat the Reapers.  There had to be something, there just had to be!

 

The scene flickered, showing brief glimpses of a star field.  “Show me!” she yelled again, putting every ounce of authority into her thoughts.  The zombie scene faded into a murky view of the galaxy.  The pain in her mind flared bright yellow again, making her bend over and clutch her gut.  The pain eased away, and when she stood up, the galaxy view had transformed itself into the familiar layout of the Normandy’s galaxy map.  Red lights flickered on and off, connecting to each other.  She recognized it immediately as the mass relay network.  But this one had lines she wasn’t familiar with.  Evidently, the Protheans had explored many more of the mass effect relays than the current galactic civilization had.

 

Something in the flickering red lines caught her attention.  It wasn’t just a map.  She leaned in closer and saw unfamiliar pictograms darting through the lines.  She felt the danger coming from this unknown data.  Danger to her or to the Reapers?  

 

There was a suggestion of time flowing, so she stepped back and let the image run.  The pictograms sped up, and Shepard found herself holding her breath in anticipation.  Suddenly the Reapers burst into the galaxy, pouring from the Citadel.  There was a sudden explosion of light and pictograms directed at the Reaper ships, and slowly the black silhouettes converted to the red pictograms and faded from view.

 

A weapon, she breathed to herself.  One that used the mass effect relay to transmit itself to the Reapers.  As a transmission device, it was perfect.  The Reapers had to use the mass effect relays to travel, so maybe that meant they were undefended against whatever this weapon was.  “Where?” she demanded of the galaxy map.  “Show me where the weapon is!”

 

She felt the intelligence behind the vision hesitate, suddenly wary.  In the blink of an eye, a presence manifested directly in front of her.  It was an unholy amalgamation of a Prothean and an asari:  naked, blue skinned, four eyes, and five fingers that ended in sharp talons.  Before she could blink, the manifestation slammed against her, shoving its arm against her neck and holding her against an unseen wall at her back.  The creature slowly lifted its other hand to rest it against Shepard’s temple.  “Who?” it hissed malevolently at her.  

 

She couldn’t answer even if she knew what it wanted to hear.  Its arm was choking off her air.  She clawed at its arm and kicked it in the legs, but for all her strength mods and cybernetics, it paid as much attention to her efforts as if she were a mosquito.  She had no defense against this mental assault.  “Who?” it asked again.  Spots started appearing in her vision, and she redoubled her efforts to break free.  Dimly, she felt Liara’s presence fluttering at the creature with all the strength of a butterfly.  

 

The creature suddenly stabbed its taloned fingers into her head, and her body went rigid, the pain enough to make her forget she couldn’t breathe.  The creature was reading her thoughts, searching for something.  She felt as if it were ripping the walls of her essential being apart, crashing from one memory to the next with no regard for the damage it was leaving behind.  It found the memory of Virmire, and she was forced to live it all over again.  Fighting Saren, calling him out, the ominous conversation with Sovereign.  Then there was the heart wrenching decision of who to save and who to let die.  She felt it all again, the sickening knowledge that she was leaving Ashley to die, the second guessing of saving Kaidan.  

 

The creature focused on Kaidan, following his trail through her memories.  It was suddenly the night before they went through the Mu Relay.  Kaidan came to her quarters.  They embraced, and her heart began racing with the excitement of the forbidden.  She led him to her bed.  Skin on skin, hips rolling and snapping.  Calling out in ecstasy, “Kaidan!”  She looked down to see not Kaidan, but that hideous creature violating her mind.  Just as she screamed for it to leave, the scene shifted again.  

 

The Mu Relay.  Ilos.  Gigantic vines covering the floor, and geth behind the ruined columns.  The Prothean watcher called Vigil.  Here the memories slowed down until she could heard Vigil declare again that she and her team carried no taint of indoctrination.  The scene froze and then disintegrated into a thousand glittering shards.  

 

She was back at the galaxy map with the creature in front of her.  Its arm was no longer crushing her throat, and she took in huge gulping gasps of air.  “You fucking bastard!” she screamed at it.  “Get the fuck out of my head!”  She cocked her fist back and threw a roundhouse punch at its ugly face, but her hand went right through it with no resistance.

 

“Cleared,” the creature intoned and faded away.  

 

Liara’s blue presence crept closer, having been forced away by the creature while it probed her memories.  Instead of being comforting, however, it made her cringe.  After having been violated so intimately by the orb’s intelligence, she couldn’t stand the idea of anyone else being so close.  Unbidden, her armor manifested around her body again, blocking out the blue light.  If Liara was disappointed or upset, she couldn’t sense it through the armor.

 

The galaxy map spun closer, the data in the red lines now flowing backward through the mass relay network.  A wave of overwhelming fatigue passed through Shepard, and the galaxy map blurred as she watched the lines coalesce at a spot in the area of space formerly dominated by the rachni.  She tried to get Liara’s attention to focus on the red pulsing dot, but wasn’t sure she was getting through.  The dot wasn’t close to a mass relay, meaning it would take several days to travel through what was now essentially an uncharted area of space that might as well be decorated with ‘here there be dragons’.

 

She stared at the dot and the surrounding stars, burning the location into her memory.  Only one more task remained.  She dredged up the energy to issue one more order.  “Show me your archives.  Mars.  Ilos.  Where else?”  It was getting harder to concentrate, but she tried to remember the blurry and confusing images from the other Prothean beacon.

 

Again the sense of an alien intelligence searching her mind, penetrating her illusory armor without any difficulty at all.  It withdrew, leaving a crippling sense of fatigue in its wake, but it must have understood her because she saw dots light up on the galaxy map.  Unexplored regions of space, two of them in regions that weren’t accessible from the current mass relay network.  She thumped her fist against her thigh in frustration, but a few were accessible now.  She hoped Liara saw and understood, but even if she didn’t she had a feeling that the data was burned into her memories.  She wondered vaguely if there would be anything of herself left after this _thing_ was done with her.  She was sick to death of the fucking Protheans and their fucking mind rape beacons.  In a moment of frustration and exhaustion, she decided that in the unlikely event she ever met one in the flesh, she’d shoot its head off if it so much as looked in her direction.

 

The galaxy map was fading out, but the sense of that alien intelligence still hovered at the edge of her consciousness.   _Just go away,_ she muttered, swatting listlessly as if at some annoying insect.  It stubbornly refused to budge.  All she wanted to do was go to sleep, but she couldn’t allow herself to relax her guard with that thing hovering in the dark.  

 

The blue light flared in the darkness, but she couldn’t get anything from it.  No thought pictures, no whispers, nothing.  Instead, there was a sense of the blue light inserting itself between her and the alien.  She might have imagined it, but it felt like a painful struggle going on somewhere.  She didn’t imagine the sudden flaring of yellow light so strong that it burned her all the way through.  She clapped her hands over her eyes, but her hands were too thin to actually block the light.  Just as suddenly, the light disappeared and she whimpered in relief.  The alien intelligence was gone as well.  Silent, empty...blissful darkness surrounded her like a cozy sleeping bag on a frigid night.  It was too much effort to hold onto thought anymore, and she happily slid into unconsciousness.

 

* * *

 

 

Zombie hands were clawing at her hair, grasping onto her arms, dragging her to the ground to become one of them.  Try as she might, she couldn’t break free of them.  They pulled her backwards, sending her head crashing into the hard ground.  Pain flared up, pulsing and threatening to send her head flying into a thousand pieces.  “Go away!” she moaned feebly as she tried to pull her hand away.

 

Suddenly the zombies let go, and she pulled so hard that she yanked herself upright.

 

She blinked her eyes as the scene abruptly shifted to a darkened room.  She was sitting on something soft, and something else soft was binding her feet together, keeping her from running.  She flailed and kicked once before the jarring motion sent a wave of pain and nausea crashing through her head.  She moaned and put both hands to her head.  

 

No zombies threatened, but a dark figure lurked by the wall.  Her vision was blurry, and she could only make out a humanoid shape.  At least it wasn’t one of the Collector zombies.  The figure didn’t move, but it was making an odd throaty sound that sounded suspiciously like...snoring.  She looked down and saw the bindings were nothing more than a blanket tangled around her legs.

 

“Liara?” she croaked out.  As soon as she spoke, her throat sent another spike of pain through her head.  It felt like her throat was raw, and even as quietly as she spoke, it was too loud.

 

“Huh? What?”  The figure jumped upright, shoving the chair back against the wall with a bang.

 

Shepard hunched over, both hands clamped over her ears.  “Ow!  Shut up!” she moaned.

 

“Sorry,” the figure intoned much more quietly.  She heard it shuffle across the carpet.  “Headache?”  She nodded, too miserable to explain that this wasn’t just a headache.  This was an entire asteroid mining team drilling into her brain.  Briefly she wondered if this was the sort of migraine that Kaidan had complained about with his L2.  If so, she felt a pang of pity for him.  No one should ever have to suffer like this.

 

She heard the footsteps returning from somewhere.  “I’ve got a pain blocker injector for you.  Want it?”  She nodded again, moving her head as little as possible.  Cool fingers pushed her hair back, and she felt the sting of the injector on her neck.  The too-loud sound of the unknown person setting the injector down vibrated through her head.  Then the cool hands were on her back, urging her to lay back down.  They put a wet cloth over her eyes, blocking out the little bit of ambient light in the room and providing blessed coolness against her overheated skin.  She simply lay there for a long time, unwilling to do anything to provoke more pain and relishing the silence and darkness.  Eventually, however, her curiosity prodded her to seek answers.  “Who’s there?”

 

This time, she recognized the voice.  “Feron.  Feeling any better?”

 

She took stock of her situation.  The pain blocker seemed to be taking effect.  The drilling team had moved from full out excavation to intermittent exploratory digs.  She lifted her hand and held her thumb and forefinger a couple inches apart.  

 

“Is your brain scrambled, or can you tell?”  Even though he spoke quietly, she could hear genuine concern in his voice.  Still unwilling to talk, she shrugged slightly.  “Let’s hope not,” he said.  “Liara said you were hooked into that thing pretty deep.  You’re insane.  Won’t catch me messing with that shit,” he added.

 

“What happened?” she croaked out.

 

There was a pause before he answered.  “We were hoping you could tell us.  Liara yelled for me to come in.  You were curled up on the floor, hugging that thing to your chest like it was the most precious thing in the world, except the expression on your face was pretty scary.  She said she was going to try and meld with you, see if she could help.  I stood there feeling about as useless as a fart in a hurricane, waiting to see if either one of you was going to wake up again.  Finally Liara said we had to get that orb away from you.  Wasn’t easy.  Took both of us to get it out of your hands.  Then we waited to see if you’d wake up.  When you didn’t, we put you in bed and just waited and hoped for the best.”

 

He fell silent, leaving hanging the implication that they had both been worried she would never wake up.  “How long?”

 

He sighed.  “Twenty one hours, more or less.  Your crew on the Normandy’s getting restless.  They’ve been sending repeated requests to talk to you.  Getting a lot more agitated over the last four hours.  Won’t take our word for it that you’re fine.  Can’t blame them, I guess.  I wasn’t even sure if we were telling the truth or not.  So as soon as you can manage it, we’d both appreciate it if you could send them a message confirming you’re not dead.  Your ship’s been mounting more and more intrusion attempts against our systems.  I’d hate to have to fry your ship’s computer.”

 

Shepard grimaced.  “I thought Liara said security was light on your ship.  We have an AI with a complete suite of electronic warfare systems.  I think I’d bet on EDI.”

 

“Hnh.  An AI?  That might explain a few things.  It’s been sneakier than a typical VI security cracker managed by an organic would be.  So yeah, call your ship pronto.”

 

“Where’s Liara?” she asked, trying to postpone calling the Normandy for a few more minutes.  She wasn’t up to answering the myriad questions she was sure they had.

 

“Buried.  When she’s not trying to catch up on the Shadow Broker’s network and deals, she’s been spending every second studying the data you gave her on the Prothean archives.  I couldn’t get you to wake up, and I can’t get her to go to sleep.   Why can’t I get saddled with normal people?” he complained.  

 

“If you wanted normal, you’d never have gotten mixed up with Liara in the first place,” she pointed out.  

 

“Guess not,” he admitted.  “I’ll go tell Liara you’re awake.  Maybe that’ll pull her away from her data mining for five minutes.  There’s another dose of pain blocker in the injector there.  You want to get loopy on pain meds, knock yourself out.”  He paused and huffed out a wry laugh.  “Got to say, it’s nice to be the one handing out drugs for a change, instead of needing them.”

 

As he turned to go, Shepard pulled the cloth off her eyes.  “Hey, Feron?”  He stopped and looked back at her.  “Thanks.  I owe you big time.  If it hadn’t been for you and Liara...I’m sorry that you wound up where you did.  If there’s anything I can do for you, tell me.  I’ll make it happen.”

 

He looked lost in thought for a long time, and she wondered if he had fallen into solipsism.  She hoped she hadn’t sent him back to the memories of being tortured.  “Don’t trust Cerberus, Shepard.  They’ll only help you as far as it benefits them.  They’ll wring every bit of usefulness they can out of you, and then they’ll dump you like a freighter of spoiled _bahak-che_.”

 

“That’s only fair, Feron.”  When he frowned at her, she went on.  “I plan on doing the exact same thing to them.”  

 

His answering grin was savage in its delight.  “I want in on it.”

 

“Good.  I’ll need you and Liara both.”

 

He was still grinning as he walked out to get Liara.  

 

Shepard put the cloth back over her eyes, relishing the feeling even though the worst of the migraine was over.  She felt for the injector and pressed it against her neck for a second dose.  She could get used to having the resources of a med bay without the disapproving doctors that invariably withheld what you wanted.  

 

The thought of EDI hacking her way through Liara’s ship’s defenses finally guilted her into sitting up again and opening a comm channel to the Normandy.  She set it to ping EDI, figuring the AI would be least likely to quiz her about the past twenty one hours.

 

“Commander Shepard, I am relieved to hear from you.”

 

“I wasn't aware you could feel relief, EDI.”  

 

“I am attempting to map my patterns of subroutine activity to equivalent human emotional states.  Now that you have contacted me, I have stopped the analytic subroutines that were engaged in developing potential scenarios to account for your unexplained absence as well as projecting multiple action plans for each scenario.  That has freed up forty two point three percent of my processing power.  I have also alerted Thane, Miranda, Jeff, Tali’Zorah, Mordin, Kasumi, Zaeed, Jacob, and Karin that you have contacted me and verified that it is indeed you and not a VI emulation from the Shadow Broker.”

 

Shepard smiled.  “Nice to know I’m loved and missed.”  One name jumped out at her as missing from that list.  “EDI, what’s Garrus’ status?”

 

“Karin still has him listed as stable but currently unconscious.  He woke briefly twelve hours ago, took in nutrients, and fell back asleep.  His prognosis is good.  When I inquired with the doctor about her diagnosis, she said that sleep is the best healer and she intended to let him sleep himself out.

 

The hard knot of guilt relaxed a little bit.  If Garrus had woken up once already, he was fine.  She remembered Feron’s injunction.  “EDI, cease and desist all infiltration attempts on the Shadow Broker’s ship and network, please.  I consider the Shadow Broker a friend.”

 

EDI’s acknowledgement came immediately.  “Of course, Shepard.  If I may inquire, can you explain why you were off comm and did not reply to any of the numerous inquiries from the Normandy?”

 

“Inquire all you want, EDI, but it’s classified for now.  I’m going to stay aboard the Shadow Broker’s ship a while longer.  It’ll probably be at least a couple hours before I’m back on board the Normandy.  Please hold my calls from everyone unless it’s a bonafide emergency, and that doesn’t mean Miranda can call and demand to know what I’ve been doing, no matter how hard she tries to classify it as an emergency.  Got it?”

 

“Yes, Shepard.  Will there be anything else?”

 

“That’s all, EDI.”

 

“Logging you out, Shepard.”

 

All she wanted to do was go back to sleep, but schedule and responsibilities were weighing on her.  She'd already lost several days helping Liara and Feron, and she didn't begrudge either of them the help.  But she was going to be hard pressed to get Kasumi to Hock's party on time.  She knew the thief was desperate to use the party as an excuse to steal back her partner's graybox, and she had expended considerable resources and effort to set things up to get both of them into the party.

 

As she was trying to calculate if she had enough hours to take a cat nap, the door opened to admit Liara.  "Shepard!"  Her face lit up in a delighted smile even as Shepard winced and motioned for her to keep her voice down.  Liara sank into the single chair and leaned over to take her friend's hand.  "I'm so glad you're awake again.  You had us worried, Shepard."

 

"It wasn't much fun from my perspective either, Liara.  Were you able to get anything from the orb?  Because I'm sure as hell never doing that again!"

 

The asari nodded to reassure her friend.  "Most of it, I think.  The first was the location of some sort of weapon the Protheans were working on.  I've narrowed the location down to a handful of systems, but it's in rachni space."

 

"Yeah, I noticed that as well.  I may have a way to contact the rachni queen, but it'll have to wait."  She turned on her side, restless at the idea of one more thing waiting until she was finished with the Collectors.  The thing of it was, she wasn't even sure how she would deal with them.  Confidence was a fine thing to show your crew, but sometimes, she had to admit to herself that she didn't know how she would accomplish everything she had planned.  "Did you catch the archives, too?"

 

Liara gave a small shake of her head.  "It was very distorted, too much noise in the signal.  I know you just woke up, but maybe before you leave, you would give me the chance to look in your mind...?"  She trailed off, and Shepard knew she had accidentally let slip her utter revulsion at the idea.  

 

She sighed.  "I'm sorry, Liara.  I just can't.  Not after what that relic did to me.”

 

“I understand, Shepard.  I am sorry for what you went through.”  She squeezed Shepard’s hand in sympathy.  “We will just have to do it the hard way, looking through system maps before you leave.  I assume you don’t want to transmit data through the Normandy’s AI?”

 

“Damn straight.  EDI’s got blocks on her programming relating to what she does for Cerberus.  She’s helpful, but I can never forget that ultimately she answers to the Illusive Man, not me.  Assume that nothing you send me is private.  Hell, I can’t even be sure that my omni-tool isn’t bugged.  I wish I could stay and relax here, where I know you’ve got my back.”

 

Liara smiled warmly.  “You’re welcome back anytime, my friend.”  

 

“I'll take you up on that,” Shepard warned with a tired smile.

 

“Do.  I’ll let you rest some more while I see if I can find something suitable to eat that isn’t salarian.  Seems the yahg had a fondness for salarian cuisine.  Come on out when you’re ready.”  Liara laughed at the disgusted look on Shepard’s face as she headed out of the room.

 

Duty pulled Shepard out of bed sooner than she would have liked, but there was too much to do.  Fortunately, the migraine had retreated to a dull ache behind her eyes.  She blinked furiously as she stepped into the brightly lit main living area of the Shadow Broker’s private retreat.  It was a generous eight meters square, filled with worn down furniture that had been tasteful and expensive once upon a time.  Feron was standing in the kitchen, opening up a foil packet.  

 

“Lunch,” he announced.  “I found a crate of Alliance MREs in the back.  This one’s called chicken enchilada.  If you don’t like it, there’s more.”

 

“That’s perfect,” she said as she headed for the table and sank wearily into a chair.  “MRE’s are a marine’s home cooked food.”  Feron handed her the steaming packet and a fork and took the chair opposite her.  She was ravenous and finished her meal in record time, ignoring Feron.  For his part, he looked lost in thought again, paying her no attention.   _We all are fighting our own battles_ , she thought to herself as she got up and wandered over to Liara standing at a monitor of displays.  

 

“I need to get back to my ship, Liara.  Let’s run over the archive locations before my crew decides to storm your airlock.”

 

“Of course, Shepard.”  She called up the maps she had created, and they spent the next two hours reviewing the data stuffed unwillingly into the Commander’s head.  By the time they were done, Shepard’s head was pounding again after trying to dredge up every detail from yesterday’s ordeal, but they had tentatively located three Prothean archives.  

 

Liara accompanied her to the airlock.  “Before you go, Shepard, I have a gift for you.”  She looked almost shy as she pulled a small gift wrapped package out of her pocket.  “I wasn’t sure if you would want these again, but they belong to you.”

 

Curious, she tore open the packaging and lifted the lid to the palm-sized box.  Her breath got stuck in her throat as she saw the glittering aluminum dog tags engraved with her name.  Liara continued, “They were with you when we recovered your body.  I didn’t see any point in letting Cerberus have them.  I hoped that they would be successful, so that I could give them back to you in person.  I’m so glad they were.”

 

Obviously, Liara went to a lot of effort.  The tags had been cleaned until they shined like new, then carefully mounted in a plas-glas display box.  Memories of Alchera rose up like thunderclouds, threatening to overwhelm her.  Ruthlessly, she shoved them back down and smiled at her friend, doing her best to project happiness at the gift.  “Thank you, Liara.  I know I’ve said it before, but if there’s anything I can do for you or Feron, just let me know.”

 

“Come back alive, Shepard.  That’s what you can do for us,” she said as she gave Shepard a fervent hug.  

 

She tucked the tags into a pocket of her cargo pants and headed for the airlock.  As the chamber cycled, she lifted a hand in goodbye to her friend through the porthole, then turned and headed back to the questionable comfort of the Normandy.

 

* * *

 

 

Also, thank you to Orchidellia at ff dot net, my beta reader! 

  



	26. Consumed By Flames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thane is beside himself with worry at Shepard's unexplained absence on the Shadow Broker's ship and worried about her upcoming mission with Kasumi. He finds a way to allay both fears.

When Shepard had casually walked onto the Shadow Broker’s ship yesterday, neither Thane nor anyone else had reason for concern.  He knew she had somehow convinced the Shadow Broker to become her ally in her mission, and yet something had gone terribly wrong.  Garrus was lying unconscious in the Med Bay, and Shepard wouldn’t explain what had happened.  It had vexed Miranda no end, showing in the exaggerated stomp of her feet as she walked across the crew deck.  Yet as the hours passed, four, six, twelve, Miranda’s expression changed from angry to concerned, then worried. The Shadow Broker had sent back reassuring messages, but they had never varied over the hours as Miranda grew increasingly strident in her demands to talk to Shepard.  After twenty hours, the entire ship was dangerously on edge without Shepard.

 

Thane found himself having difficulty sinking into his usual meditative calm during Shepard’s unexplained absence.  Last night, he slept in his spartan cot in Life Support.  They had been sharing a bed, if not each other’s bodies, for less than a week, and yet already he missed her keenly. On past missions, when he had been left behind on the Normandy, he had been able to listen in on the mission radio, so at least he could follow along.  This time, there had been nothing, either during her mission with Garrus or afterward when she had disappeared into the Shadow Broker's ship, and that nothingness ate at him with an ugly familiarity, all too similar to his frantic attempts to contact Irikah on his desperate trip back home from that fake contract.

 

After Shepard had contacted EDI and informed everyone that she was okay and would be returning in a few hours, Thane had staked out a dark corner of CIC deck.  He knew he had no reason to be there, but that didn't stop him from pretending to read a data pad.  Soon enough the bridge crew had forgotten he was there.  

 

Shepard was different when she stepped back on board the Normandy.  She affected the same attitude she always did as she sauntered out of the airlock onto CIC, greeting Joker affectionately and giving him new navigation orders, calling out to the bridge crew, acknowledging Kelly’s news with a nod.  He saw the crew noticeably relax as she passed through.  To the casual glance, nothing had changed.  Thane’s glance, however, was far from casual.  He had spent many hours with her in all circumstances - good, bad and ugly, and he was immediately aware of the changes in her appearance and gait.

 

Now here she was, acting as if nothing untoward had happened.  He tried to pinpoint the emotions swirling deep inside:  relief but also anger after the agonizingly long hours of worry.  He felt the Normandy’s engines engage as Joker disconnected from the Shadow Broker’s ship and lifted into orbit.  He timed his movements so that he met Shepard as she reached the lift.  She greeted him with a warm smile, but up close, he could see the dark circles under her eyes and smell the sour scent of old sweat and fear that clung to her.  Neither one said anything until the doors closed them off from CIC.  

 

“Shia?”  He could hold back his questions no longer.

 

“Not yet, Thane,” she replied, cutting him off.  “Later.  Please.”  She mitigated the harshness of her words by taking his hand in hers and lifting it to her lips.  “You have no idea how glad I am to see you, but I have some things I have to do first.  I’ll stop by to see you soon, okay?”

 

The last thing he wanted was to wait even longer to see her, to know for himself that she was truly well and safe.  He also wanted to yell at her for making him afraid, for disappearing with no word or reassurances.  He would not, but she brought forth so many emotions that he had repressed for long.  He had never needed to meditate as much in recent years as he had since becoming close to her, and he had never wished to meditate less.  These burning feelings left him feeling helpless and at the mercy of the force of nature that was Shepard.

 

There was one good thing about how damnably slow the Normandy’s lifts were.  It gave him time to show her how much he missed her.  He swept her up in his arms and devoured her lips with his.  This was no safe kiss of the sort they had contented themselves with the last few days.  He plundered her mouth ruthlessly, vestiges of anger still driving him.  He would show her the depths of his passion for her, his hunger for her touch, to leave her desperate for more so that she would come back to him as quickly as possible.  She was stiff in his arms for an instant, surprised by the suddenness and intensity of his ardor, before her arms came around him and she melded her body to his.  She pressed one hand against the back of his head, deepening the kiss.  

 

Too soon, the lift stopped on the crew deck.  Just before the doors opened, he released her, seeing her lips already swollen and her eyes heavy with desire.  “Soon,” he said, making her words into a promise he would hold her to.  Then with a blink, she straightened her back and walked out toward Med Bay without acknowledging him any further.  He was becoming used to this in her.  Always the Commander in public.  She might relax at times, exchange jokes, share drinks, but always she held herself slightly apart.  It was only in private that she relaxed enough to show him her true self.

 

Frustrated, he turned toward his quarters in Life Support.  The problem with shipboard life was that there was a decided lack of distractions compared with a city.  Even if he never cared for company, he could get out and mix with the crowd, keep his skills sharp by picking a random target from the crowd and following them, noting their habits, plotting ways both subtle and obvious to bring about their demise.  Here such behavior was fruitless.  He had scoped the entirety of the Normandy in less than a day and learned the foibles of the crew in three.  

 

Dinnertime came and went with no word from her.  It took all his considerable mental fortitude to complete his meditations, but finally he could wait no longer.  He sent a request to her through EDI.   Her reply was several minutes in coming, but did invite him up.

 

Her cabin door was a welcoming green, and he walked on in only to stop and touch his ears at the high pitched whine that went straight through his skull.  He heard Garrus and as he came down the stairs, he saw the turian taking up most of Shepard’s couch while she sat on the bed facing him.  Garrus was leaning back in a manner that suggested the awkward position was actually the least painful one he could find.  Unsure of what they were discussing, he elected to stay standing by the fish tank.

 

“Hey, Thane,” Shepard said by way of greeting.  Garrus nodded to him and started to lever himself painfully upright.  Shepard jumped up to give him a hand before Thane could think to offer.  “Here, big guy,” she said softly.  “Go get some sleep.”

 

“I’ve already slept a whole day.  Wouldn’t think I’d still be tired,” he said quietly, his normal smirk and swagger completely subsumed by his injuries.

  
“Yeah, same here.”

 

Thane’s interest was piqued.  She had spent the past day sleeping?  Surely she wouldn’t have left the Normandy crew hanging in suspense just to sleep!  He watched as she walked Garrus to the door.  It was amusing to see her pamper her injured specialist in the same fashion he did for her when she was injured.  Even more amusing to see Garrus respond just as irritably. He could see why they were friends; they were cut from the exact same cloth, despite being different species.

 

She returned and the high pitched whine impinged on his hearing again.  He looked around for the source, but found nothing.  “Shepard, the noise?”

 

“You hear it, too, huh?  Sorry about that.  It’s my crude attempt at an electronic scrambler.”  She gestured to her omni tool.  “I’m no engineer, but I can jury rig a couple things.  I can’t hear it though.”

 

“You don’t trust your privacy?”

 

She snorted.  “Not since the day I stepped on board.”

 

“But you have Mordin scan for bugs.”

 

She shook her head.  “This is too sensitive.  I can’t take any chances.  I need the Shadow Broker on my side, and I can risk her getting compromised by Cerberus.”  She took him by the hand and led him to the couch.  She leaned close, but it wasn’t for her usual amorous activities.  She placed her lips close to his ear as she continued.  “There’s a saying I heard long ago.  Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.  I’ll tell you what happened today, but then you aren’t to speak of it again while on the Normandy.  Understood?”  She waited until he nodded his head.  Secrecy was an old friend of his.

 

Quickly, quietly, she debriefed him on the battle through the Shadow Broker’s ship, meeting her friend Liara T’Soni, finding and freeing Feron, and the pitched fight with the yahg.  

 

“And your unexplained absence over the last day?” he prodded.  He noted she had showered at least, but an air of exhaustion still clung to her, hard to explain if she had been sleeping for a day.  

 

“I made contact with the Prothean relic that you and I recovered.”  He felt the shudder that went through her.

 

“What happened?” he demanded.  “Were you injured?”  She waited too long to respond for his comfort, and he turned to cup her face in his hands, searching her expression carefully.  “Shepard?”

 

“It...merged with me.  Read my mind.  Answered my questions.”  She wouldn’t meet his eyes.

 

“What else?”  She shrugged uncomfortably.  “Shepard?” he warned again.

 

“It used my life to show me what happened to the Protheans.”  When he didn’t let go of her face, she sighed and continued.  “I saw my friends turn into Collectors.  It was ugly.”  She shuddered again still not looking directly at him.  

 

“Was I there?” he asked, although he was positive he knew the answer.

 

She nodded reluctantly.  He sighed and folded her close in his arms.  She said it was ugly.  He wondered if she would have new nightmares to compete with the old ones, but he had learned his lesson the hard way about prodding too hard at the stuff of her nightmares.  “It was only an image, siha. I am here, still myself.”

 

“I’m glad!” Her words were muffled against his neck as she hugged him tightly.

 

“So you were ‘involved’ with the relic for this entire day?”

 

“No.  It was over fairly fast, but I passed out.  It takes time to process and recover from what I saw.  The first time I interacted with a Prothean beacon, I was unconscious for nineteen hours.  This time, it was twenty one.  It’s rough,” she said ruefully.

 

Thane said nothing.  He wished he could rail against her for taking such a chance, or at least for doing so without him.  He wondered if she was even aware of the depths of his fear when she’d disappeared.  He’d been at the point of disregarding Miranda’s order and slipping onto the Shadow Broker’s ship to look for a way in when EDI had informed him of Shepard’s contact.  He knew it was useless, however, to remonstrate with her.  When she decided to do something, no force in the galaxy could stop her.  “Is there anything else?” he asked her.  

 

She shook her head, then sat upright as she remembered something.  She leaned in close again.  “There’s someone watching Kolyat.  Someone wants to know what he’s doing.”

 

Thane’s hands clenched into fists behind her back.  “Who?” he demanded.

 

She shrugged.  “Liara doesn’t know.  Information brokers frequently hide the identity of their clients.  She isn’t the one actually paying for the service, so she can’t stop it.  The system just noted it as a second degree connection with me.”

 

He felt cold fingers of dread touch his spine.  Irikah had died because of him.  Now shadowy forces were turning their attention to his son.

  
“Thane?  Thane!”  Shepard’s pitched concern broke through his fog.  “Listen to me.  I know you’re worried, but you can’t do anything.  Not yet.”

  
  
“Shepard, someone’s after my son!”

 

“No, Thane, we don’t know that for sure.  All we know is that someone is keeping an eye on him.  That’s not unexpected.  He’s not a nobody.  He’s connected to you, and through you, to me.  That’s reason enough for someone to watch him.  It doesn’t mean they plan to hurt him.  It’s probably an intel watch.”  He was afraid to believe her.  “Thane, listen to me.  I’m ordering you not to investigate.  Not yet.  Not from the Normandy.”  She met his glare undaunted.  “I told you, this is sensitive information from the Broker.  Until she gets settled in and secures her cover, I don’t want to reveal to Cerberus how much I got from her.  And believe me, there’s a couple heads I want to knock together pretty damn badly but can’t,” she added with her lips suppressed in a tight line.

 

“Now listen,” she continued, ignoring his glare, “we’re headed for the Citadel and we’ll dock there tomorrow night.  Kasumi and I are going on to Beckenstein from there.  You and the rest of the crew will stay on the Citadel until we return.  That will give you plenty of time to conduct your own investigations off the Normandy.  Do you understand?”  As much as he hated it, she was still his employer, and he was bound to follow her orders.  He nodded stiffly.  Besides, he would have access to much better information networks from the Citadel.  There would be less risk of tipping off the one watching his son that a deadly hunter had just awakened and started on his trail.

 

“I wish you would take the Normandy to Beckenstein, siha,” he said, searching for something to divert his attention from the shadowy threat over Kolyat.  

 

She shook her head.  “You know I can’t.  The Normandy is Shepard’s ship.  I have to go in as Allison Gunn.  Hock’s too sharp to give him a chance to connect the dots.”

 

“At least take Zaeed with you,” he argued.  He wanted to go himself, but it was impossible.  Even before he had outed himself at the hanar embassy, he would never have been invited to, or accepted an invitation for a party such as Hock’s.  His identity had depended too much on secrecy.

 

“I can’t.  Kasumi couldn’t swing the invite.  Thane, I’ll be fine.  This is a simple theft.  It’s what Kasumi’s best at, and it’s really her op.  I’m just there to provide distraction at the party while she sneaks in and steals the graybox.  I probably won’t even have to shoot anyone.  See, simple.”

 

Again he reminded himself that when she set her mind to something, there was no talking her out of it.  The most he could do was offer prayers for her safe return.  

 

No, there was one other thing he could do.  

 

He tapped on her omni-tool, and the ear splitting whine faded away, making him blink with relief.  Now he could concentrate on what needed to be done.  He refused to let her leave him again without giving her something to come back for.  

 

“You say we will dock tomorrow night?” he repeated as he allowed his fingers to ghost down her spine.

 

“Mm hm.”  She closed her eyes and leaned her head back.  He could see her pulse fluttering in her throat.  “Why?”

 

“That might give me just enough time to worship you as I once promised,” he breathed into her ear, turning it into a nibble on her earlobe.

 

Her eyes snapped open.  “I thought...you...seriously?”

 

He stroked her hip with his other hand.  “Unless you are too fatigued from your earlier exertions?” he inquired.  He loved surprising her and had a hard time maintaining his serious attitude.

 

Her expression flickered between excitement and wariness.  “I’d have to be dead before I said no.”  Her arms wound around his neck.  "What happened to your vow?"

 

He dragged her onto his lap and brushed his lips over hers.  "If you can take down a yahg and install a new Shadow Broker, I'd say you were recovered enough to handle me."

 

Her quiet laugh misted over him.  "Mighty big words, Mr. Krios."

 

His hands were dancing up and down her back, only the thin material of her t-shirt between his fingers and her skin.  "I have one condition, though."  She lifted her eyebrows to question what.  "We do this my way," he rumbled.

 

"And what is your way?" she asked with eyes closed to better enjoy his touch.

 

"Slowly.  One small, delicious bit at a time.  The way one would enjoy a poem, reading each line, considering each word.  Or savoring a fine meal, one delectable course at a time."  He punctuated his sentences with soft licks and nips on her neck.  He had discovered to his delight that her neck was nearly as sensitive as a drell’s, and he took full advantage of that fact right now.  Of course, he also had an ulterior motive:  He needed to ensure that he wouldn't accidentally injure her after her battle yesterday.

 

“Oh my god, Thane, I love the way you talk.”  He felt the shiver that ran through her body even as he wondered at her reference to a deity she professed not to believe in.  His woman was a study in contradictions and had been since he first met her.  He slipped his hand under her shirt to feel the smooth warmth of her skin. Humans hailed from a cooler planet than Rakhana, and as a result ran a significantly warmer body temperature than drell. Her biotic nature added another degree. To him, she felt delightfully warm, like a pliable sun baked rock that beckoned him to curl up around her. He knew that in return, he felt cool against her skin and most mornings he had been waking up to find her draped over his body to dissipate excess heat, especially since she had raised the temperature in her cabin a couple of degrees to accommodate his near-constant presence.

 

He traced her ribs back to front traveling from bottom to top. As his fingers skated upwards, they brushed the bottoms of her breasts, causing her to arch her back and press into him. He silently gave thanks to Mordin for his information pamphlets.  Instead of being vulgar as he’d initially feared, it had been just the right level of information regarding human females, and he was finding these lessons much more intriguing than the assassin guild’s lessons on human anatomy.

 

Yearning to see more of her, he gently pushed her shirt up and over her head, at the same time pushing her backward on the couch.  He stroked the back of one hand down her breastbone, studying her.  The expanse of pale skin glowed softly in the low light she preferred in the evenings.  The scars he had admired previously had faded significantly as a result of Miranda’s surgery, but if he looked closely, he could still see the spidery silver lines.

 

He looked back at her face to see her smiling.  “Like what you see?”  

 

He leaned down to kiss her, biting her lower lip and then down her jaw.  “Immensely.”  He kissed his way down her neck then sat back to look some more.  Experimentally, he slid his fingertips around and over one breast, noting how just the light contact caused her to catch her breath and tense up.  He tried it again, this time brushing over the pink nipple and watched in fascination as it crinkled and tautened.  He tried the same thing with the other breast and smiled.  There were opportunities here for hours of exploration, and he fully intended to exploit every one of them.  For now though, there were other areas to explore.  

 

He quickly undid the buckles to his jacket and tossed it carelessly behind him.  He started to lean back over her when she reached up and pulled the zipper to his vest.  “Uh uh.  Fair’s fair.  I lost my shirt.  You lose yours.”  He allowed her to slide the zip down until his vest hung open. Her fingers caressed along the skin of his chest, exploring the planes of his musculature until she pushed the vest backward and he shrugged it off.  “Like what you see?” he asked.

 

“Immensely,” she whispered.  Her light touch made the fine muscles in his skin ripple and twitch.  He endured it as long as he could, then he traced around her breasts and discovered she was ticklish under her arms.  "Fair's fair," he murmured as she twisted away, laughing.  

 

He urged her to turn over so he could continue his exploration.   She groaned in disappointment, but he whispered erotic promises in her ear.  Her skin was unbelievably smooth, like caressing silk.  He traced his fingers along the delicate network of scars still visible along her spine.  A large, ugly blue and black bruise blooming on her side marred the perfection of her skin, and his fingers skated along the edge, careful to inflict no further suffering.  He could see more bruises along her arms and knuckles, mute testimony to the vicious hand to hand combat with the yahg that she had described earlier.  It only hammered home again the fact that this incredible woman lying beneath him was a skilled and powerful warrior.  He brushed the hair away from her neck and kissed her there, whispering prayers of thanks to Arashu for sending her siha to intersect his life's path.

 

He took his time exploring every inch of skin down to where her jeans still hugged low on her hips.  He ran a hand underneath the fabric, drifting lazily from back to front until he encountered the button there.  She helpfully lifted her hips in the air to give him room to work.  Working by touch, he undid the fastenings, drawing from her an impatient moan that transitioned to a desperate gasp as he sent his fingers lower, seeking the source of warmth and damp that drew him as a moth to a flame.

 

His training told him exactly where along her spine were the places most vulnerable, except this time, he placed soft kisses on each spot, occasionally scraping his teeth to make her squirm underneath him.  As he moved lower, he dragged her jeans off over her hips until they lay in a forgotten heap atop his jacket.   He continued his slow exploration down the back and side of her legs, discovering that the back of her knees were extremely ticklish, and he risked a painful kick if he persisted in exploring that particular part of her anatomy too long.

 

He massaged the bottoms of her feet, aware of the large number of nerve endings there.  He quickly discovered just how much pressure to apply to have her melting in sensual pleasure.  He marveled at the sight of her laid out before him, grace and power evident in the lines of her body, a relaxed predator humming with sexual tension.  He ignored the bruises as just part of who she was, but for a moment, he allowed himself to dream of a future where his warrior angel no longer needed to battle and prayed that he would live to see it with her.

 

He ached for her, hot and heavy in the thick confining leather of his pants, but a lifetime of practice mastering his body's desires allowed him to focus on her instead. There was no small amount of pride in how quickly he discovered how to manipulate her symphony of sighs and moans.

 

Again, he urged her to turn over and devoured her hungrily with his gaze.  She reminded him of a classic work of art.  Her body was no longer alien to him, but beautiful simply because it was Shepard.  He marveled again at the translucency of her skin, glowing luminous as a pearl of Arashu.  He traced a single blue vein rising to the surface just under her collarbone, returning vital blood to her heart.  Muscles flexed and relaxed in her limbs and a fine sheen of sweat collected between her breasts.  

 

His hand grazed down the taut planes of her stomach to brush the soft damp curls between her legs.  In response, she wrapped one leg around his, drawing him closer in wordless invitation.  His fingers skipped down to caress the silky skin of her inner thighs, bringing a disappointed moan from her.

 

"Thane, I need you.  Please stop teasing me," she groaned in a voice gone husky with desire.

 

"So impatient, my siha."  He deliberately stroked the most sensitive places he had discovered thus far, stoking the fires higher.  

 

"Yes," she hissed as she moved her hips to try and bring his fingers to where she desired them most.

 

"Patience," her murmured.  "We will do this my way, remember?  Slowly.  Deliberately.  Until I fill your every sense, fulfill your every desire, building one sensation upon another until even your human memories will preserve this night in perfect clarity for the rest of your days.”  He watched amazed as that simple promise caused her to moan and arch even further against him.  

 

He laid himself carefully over her, propping himself up on one elbow so that his other hand was free to massage and cup her breast, feeling the softness there that was nowhere else on her body, a soft mound with a hard, pebbled tip.  More experimentation with fingers, lips and tongue produced a startlingly erotic response.  His ministrations caused her to rock rhythmically against his thigh and wrap her arms around his back.

 

This time he moved his hand down between her legs, delighting in the warmth soaking his palm.  His fingers toyed with the curves and folds of flesh he found there, exploring just as carefully as he had every other inch of her body, drawing soft mews of pleasure and arousal from the woman below him.  Her eyes were closed, and mouth was open.  She licked her lips in unconscious invitation that he was only too glad to take her up on.  He leaned in and covered her mouth with his, even as he dipped a finger into her liquid heat.  His tongue mimicked the action.  She drove her hips upward in an attempt to draw his finger in further, so he obliged her.  Gods, she was so hot!  What would it be like to bury himself inside her?

 

He eagerly swallowed the noises she was waking.  Her body was tightening under and around him.  He could sense she was close to losing control and decided to push her further.  He was nothing if not thorough, and he had read Mordin's information closely.  He curled his finger, looking for something specific, but not sure exactly what it was or where to find it.  His intuition told him he had found it, however, when his lover stiffened, every muscle rigid before her eyes flew open in a sightless stare and she convulsed around his finger.  She chanted his name over and over, the sound falling like honey on his ears.

 

Nothing had prepared him for the heady feeling of this strong woman melting in his arm, giving herself completely to him.  He couldn’t wait to feel it again.

 

* * *

 

 

Shepard slowly came back to herself, eyes closed against even the low light in her cabin.  Every muscle was relaxed, she was gloriously limp and suffused with such a heavenly glow that she felt she must be illuminating the cabin.  Touch was the next thing to come to the forefront.  Her fingers were resting on Thane's back, caressing and feeling the slightly rough texture of the scales that covered his skin.  His weight pressed her into the couch just enough to keep her motionless, but not enough to hinder her breathing.  Not that she had any desire to move from this spot.  His free hand was stroking her hair back from her face, and she smiled as she turned her face to nuzzle his palm.

 

"Mmmn, that was wonderful," she said, refusing to open her eyes and letting her hands express her happiness.

 

Thane's gravelly response, when it came, sent her tired muscles gripping with anticipation.  "That, my siha, was merely the appetizer, the prologue to the hours I intend to devote to learning every inch of your body, cataloging every variation of sigh and moan, to knowing what you desire most."

 

She drew in a stuttering breath.  "You, Thane.  I desire you.  All of you."  What he had given her was astounding, breathtaking, and precious, but the idea of more hung at the near horizon, tantalizingly close.  What she wanted next was separated from her only by a pair of thick leather pants, and Shepard was in the habit of taking what she wanted.  

 

Just as he had done to her earlier, her fingers slid into the narrow space between his pants and his rough skin.  She could feel the muscular curve of his backside before she slid her hands around his hips and between their bodies.  

 

He could easily read her intent and by the simple expedient of pressing down against her body, trapped her hands between them.  Her fingers curled up into his lower abdominals, but that was the extent of her freedom.  “Always in a rush,” he chided.  “The night is young, and I’m just getting started.”

 

Her world dissolved into long slow kisses that traveled from her lips to her neck and back again.  She didn’t even mind that her hands were still trapped.  She caressed him with the limited movement she had and was gratified to feel his abs twitch and his hips grind down between her legs.  She itched for the chance to turn the tables on him.  Impatient? Yes, she was, she freely admitted.  Up to now, life had been a headlong rush, always reaching for the next goal:  the Academy, N one through seven, Spectre, Saren, this mission now with her specialists.  But Thane’s slow, deliberate approach to lovemaking had definite appeal.

 

She held her breath when Thane started moving his kisses down her chest.  He licked the valley between her breasts, and she had never realized that section of anatomy could feel as good as it did when he drew his rough tongue down it and then up to capture a nipple between his teeth.  He explored with his mouth the same way he did with his hands - slowly, testing every inch, playing one section of skin against another to see which was the most sensitive until she thought she’d die from the combination of too much physical sensation coupled with too much aching emptiness.

 

As he kissed his way down her body, her hands came free and she immediately brought them up to stroke and grip his broad shoulders, stroking up the back of his neck, feeling the small bumps that ran down his spine.  She kept enough awareness in one small part of her mind to remember the sensitivity of the velvet ribbing at his neck and brought one hand down to caress and learn the unusual folds and texture there.  Just as before, her touch brought a growl from Thane that could only be named desire, and the pressure of his hand on her ribs increased significantly.  She did it again and he bit her hip bone where it stood out slightly.  Her smile grew devious.  Two could play at this game.  But that would be for another time.  She was only too happy to allow him to continue his current ministrations.

 

His warm breath spread over her very center, causing her to relax bonelessly into the couch, aching for his touch.  He was not cruel enough to leave her wanting long.  Hands and mouth ghosted around and across her core, touches light and slow, and yet this slow exploration of her body was the most erotically powerful experience she had ever known.  In some respects, she felt like a complex toy given to a mad scientist determined to unlock her every secret.  Then his lips closed over her exquisitely sensitive nub and higher brain functions ceased processing.  

 

Her universe closed down to the powerful man between her legs who treated her as a precious gift, yet never one that was fragile.  For all his care in touching her body, he had learned how much was too much and kept her balanced on the knife edge between pleasure and pain, driving her to heights she had never known were possible.  He brought his fingers to bear in inflicting the maximum amount of sensation she could handle.  A dim corner of her brain reflected that his hands, ones she had once called those of both a killer and a healer, were also those of a fantastically skilled lover, and the dichotomy of having someone so lethal also be so tender was enough to push her over the edge.  She cried his name as her world shattered and flew apart into millions of glittering pieces.  

 

She had no idea how long she rode that crescendo, other than it utterly wiped out beyond compare any past experiences.  Thane had mapped out her responses and used his perfect recall to prolong her ecstasy until the pleasure tipped her overloaded body into the beautiful, burning pain of too much, and only then did he cease his ministrations and move up to lie against her on the couch.

 

For her part, all she could do was lie there and exult again in such a heavenly feeling.  Even if pirates boarded the Normandy this moment, she wasn’t sure she could move, nor did she much care.  The only thing that mattered in her universe was the solid warmth of the man lying next to her.  They lay there in companionable silence until her thoughts started becoming disconnected with the onset of sleep.  She should tell him how she felt before she fell completely asleep.  “Thane...that was...was...”

 

* * *

 

 

He lay quietly at her side, drinking in the sight of her long naked body the way a man in the desert would drink of life-saving water.  This moment, this evening was already imprinted on his perfect memory, but he still enjoyed each second, watching her breathe, feeling her shift against him.  The scent of vanilla, gun oil, and the ocean all mixed in a combination that was uniquely his siha’s.  

 

He ran his hand down her body tracing the silvery scars.  He loved this body, but even more, he loved the woman who inhabited it.  He loved that she was so secure in herself and so trusting with him.  He swore he would never give her reason to doubt that trust.  

 

His lips twitched in a smile as she mumbled his name and fell more deeply asleep.  He had plans for later, and they would be better served in a more comfortable setting.  He picked her up and moved her to the bed, enjoying how she fit against him.  From the first time he had carried her, injured and bleeding down to Med Bay, he had been supremely aware of the vitality of this woman.  He was doomed before he had even realized it, caught in the wake of her vibrant personality like so many others.  The difference was that she had looked back at him, that he was the one she chose to give herself to.  

 

He covered them both with a sheet and fell into a light meditative sleep.  He wanted to ensure he would awaken when she did.

 

* * *

 

 

Thane’s solid body next to her was a familiar comfort as she woke up.  Hm, in her own bed even.  The lights were out completely, and only the faint blue, wavering light from the fish tank illuminated the cabin.  The light made Thane’s markings look alive as they twined down his shoulders and arms, and cast him in an unfamiliar shade of blue.

 

She was in the midst of a peaceful calm, for once able to stop worrying as she had been ever since waking up to find herself in Cerberus’ scheming clutches.  Never before had she felt this sense of completeness.  She could always count on Thane, and that sense of surety filled her with peace.  She would be with Thane for the rest of his life.  No matter the cost, she wouldn’t give up what she had right now for anything. 

 

Too many times in the past, men had been intimidated by her determination, by her strength, both physical and mental.  When she pushed at them, they tended to become angry at her audacity for being better than they were, or they ran away, or they became subservient.  Thane did none of those.  He followed her commands without question, but when she pushed at him, he more than held his own against her.  

 

“Feeling well?” he asked without opening his eyes.  Her assassin was devious, lying in wait, tempting you to lower your guard, and then striking without warning.  He kept her on her toes, metaphorically speaking.  She liked that.

 

“Incredible.  Marvelous.  Ecstatic.  Wonderful.  Shall I open up a thesaurus and keep going?”

 

Still with eyes closed, he stroked down her spine.  “No side effects?”

 

She hummed and arched against him.  “None so far.  I may need to experiment some more, though.”

 

He rumbled in pleasure and rolled on top of her, fully alert.  “I was hoping you’d feel that way.”

 

That’s when it dawned on her that he was still clothed from the waist down.  His pants clung so tightly they were practically a second skin.  It made his jacket a crime against humanity for hiding away his perfect backside, but then again, maybe it was a good thing no one else could see it.  She wasn’t the type to share.

 

She could feel the heavy bulge in his pants, and she practically itched to see him naked.  “You had your turn.  Now it’s mine,” she announced as she pushed him to the side.  

 

He rolled onto his back willingly.  “I am yours, siha,” he breathed in that devastatingly sexy voice of his that undid her.

 

She wanted to take her time, as he had.  She ran her fingers along the frill that marked his cheeks and stroked the red ribbing on his throat.  It was hard to tell in the dim light, but it seemed to flush darker.  There was no mistaking the deep rumble in his chest or the way his breathing quickened.  She worked her way down his chest, tracing the black bands that seemed to all urge her downward.  No nipples, but he had a belly button in the same place humans did.  His broad shoulders tapered down slightly to his waist.  He wasn’t bulky the way many muscular humans were.  Instead, his was a functional strength, carefully blended with speed and flexibility.  

 

He suffered her explorations in silence.  The only indications that he wasn’t simply sleeping were the rapid rise and fall of his chest and the way his fists would wrap around the sheet.

 

When she reached his pants, she deliberately skipped over the growing bulge to stroke and massage his thighs.  Her smile grew impish as she watched his hips twitch upward.   _Revenge is sweet_ , she thought.  Still, she was far too aroused herself to draw it out the way he had to her.  She turned her attention back to his waist and quickly undid the fastenings there.    
  
The soldier in her was momentarily distracted by the weight of his pants - some sort of kinetic armor melded to the leather, she deduced.  Then the monkey part of her brain told the analytical part to shut up.  All of her wanted to know what he looked like.  She had only skimmed Mordin’s notes; they seemed too embarrassing to her, too voyeuristic.  His leathers slid easily down his legs, leaving her staring in wonder at his very striking anatomy.  Did she look as odd to him?  

 

In general, he was not so different from what she was used to in terms of shape and size.  But the color!  His groin was the same flushed magenta as his throat, and the scales on his abdomen gave way to a smooth, shiny skin.   _The rumors were true!_ she thought giddily.  Thick ridges encircled his member, each one pinching upward on the underside.  Tentatively, she reached out to touch him, finding the skin soft and velvety over his rock hard length.  The ridges stood out, stiff but still slightly pliable when she pushed down on them.  His girth was considerable and flared out slightly at the base.  He was warm and vibrant in her hand, and she shuddered in anticipatory pleasure.  

 

Ever so lightly, she ran her fingers down his length then wrapped her hand around him.  She leaned down to take an experimental lick and was enthralled to see him arch off the bed.  Except for his rough breathing, he was utterly silent, but his body was spilling all sorts of secrets.

 

She licked again, but his hands came up to firmly lift her head away.  “Later,” he rasped.  “I have waited a very long time, siha. I would have your body tonight.”  He tugged until she was prone on top of him.  His hands came down to knead her backside and press her more firmly against him, highlighting his desire.

 

Her urgency matched his, and she could wait no longer.  She rolled to her back, pulling him atop her.  He slid one hand between their bodies and found her ready and eager for him.  He needed no further exhortations.

 

Shepard was transported as he slipped inside her, and then she felt the beginnings of rapture as the first ridge moved past her sensitive muscles.  It had been so very long, a lifetime in fact in this new body.  All their late night talks, furtive touches in the mess, the longing kisses in her cabin built to this one point in her life.  It took time for her new body to adjust to him, and Thane, perfectly in tune with her body as always, went slowly.  She suddenly realized she could feel him _shaking_ with the effort of holding back for her.  Finally he was seated entirely within her, and they simply held each other tight while her body adjusted.

 

She opened her eyes to find him nose to nose.  The intensity of his gaze stole away what little breath she had remaining.  “You are a living flame, my siha,” he whispered against her lips.  “I will burn in your embrace and count it a blessing.”

 

No words resided in her that could match his poetry, so she settled for the language she was most familiar with - that of her body.  She arched against him, wordlessly pleading, showing him her love through actions, urging him to motion.  As if they shared one mind, he moved against her, slowly at first, giving her time to process the familiar, yet unfamiliar, sense of him.  She thought she would fly apart, but her body was stronger than that.  She held together, only to be assaulted again and again by an abundance of sensation.

 

Up and down, light and dark, all ceased to have meaning.  She felt the white hot intensity of her climax building deep inside.  Thane set his teeth unerringly on the most sensitive part of her neck, sending a lightning bolt through her body.  He whispered in her ear, “Burn for me, love.”

 

His words were her undoing.  Her world dissolved into a symphony of heat, light and color that transcended reality and consumed her bodily.  Her soul took flight and exulted to the very stars that seemed to pale in the heavens.  She felt his body sing to her as she dug her fingers into his back.  He joined with her in celebrating life at its most primal, a single guttural groan finally escaping his lips as he went rigid in her arms.

 

She gloried in his weight on her, heavy as he finally relaxed as bonelessly as she.  For once, he was replete and not focused solely on her, and she was absurdly glad to have been the cause of his distraction.

 

Eventually, he returned to himself, as she knew he would.  He moved to the side and pulled her tight against his body.  He said nothing, and for once, she had no desire to rush around or speak.  She only wanted to stay here in the protective cocoon of his arms for as long as the universe would allow.  

 

* * *

 

“Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.

They're in each other all along.”

― [Rumi](https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/875661.Rumi)

 

* * *

Thanks to Orchidellia at ff dot net, my excellent beta reader.  
  



	27. It's Just A Stealth op

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard and Kasumi infiltrate Hock's party to retrieve Kasumi's partner's graybox. Nothing ever goes as planned.

As usual when the Normandy was docked at the Citadel, it was a ghost ship, although this time, most of the crew were going to get an extended shore leave.  The Normandy would undock again in a few hours, but with Joker and a skeleton crew onboard.  Shepard and Kasumi were headed to Beckenstein and they expected to be gone for a few days, so Joker and EDI had planned a series of offensive and defensive maneuvers they could practice without throwing the crew around at high gees.  Garrus was also staying on board to conduct live fire exercises on the Thanix cannon.

 

Shepard was packing light - a change of clothes, one pistol, and her combat knife.  Thane had talked her into wearing Kasumi’s little black dress when disembarking since he wouldn’t actually get to see her in it at the party.  All of her armor and weapons had already been turned over to Kasumi to plant in that gaudy statue of Saren.

 

She stepped out of the bathroom and was more than gratified to see Thane’s already big eyes widen further in appreciation.  He swept her up in his arms and pinned her against the fish tank, letting her slowly slide down the length of his body as he ravished her lips.  He was still wearing only his leather pants and she let her hands slide along his chest and down his arms, loving the feel of him.  She had always been a sucker for a good looking male, and Thane was practically perfect as a physical specimen of strength and speed.  

 

He made that particular thrumming noise deep in his chest that meant he was turned on by what he saw, a noise she was very familiar with after last night.  He started to pull the hem of her skirt up, but she pushed his hand away.  “Don’t get started,” she warned with a breathless laugh.  “I have a transport to catch.”

 

“It doesn’t leave for two hours,” he said as he nuzzled against her neck.  

 

She sighed in pleasure as she tilted her head to the side to give him access to her neck.  “That’s not nearly enough time and you know it.  Not the way you work.”

 

“I didn’t hear any complaints last night.  Or this morning,” he added, his voice smug with male satisfaction as he worked his way down her collarbone.  “Or this afternoon.”

 

“And that’s why part of my two hours includes stopping for food.  We missed lunch, and I’m starving!” she teased.

 

Thane reluctantly stepped back.  “Then at least allow me to accompany you off the ship.”  She waited, watching appreciatively as he finished dressing.  They took advantage of the Normandy’s slow elevators to kiss one last time before exiting on CIC deck.  

 

Kasumi was waiting at the airlock, and Shepard swore she could see the petite thief’s eyes twinkling with merriment, even under her hood.  “Look who’s finally up,” she said lightly.  Shepard tried to glare at her, but gave it up after just a moment.  She was just too damn happy to care what anyone said right now.

 

As the airlock cycled open, Thane took her hand and raised it to his lips.  “Return safely, my siha.  And see that you avoid the big explosions.”

 

She laughed.  “I told you, it’s a stealth op.  In and out with no one the wiser.”  At the skeptical look on his face, she asked, “What?  You don’t think I can do stealth?”

 

“I think the likelihood is deplorably low,” he answered, sounding resigned.  

 

“I’ll be back before you know it,” she promised.  “Have a good time with Kolyat.”  She looked back once, just before they rounded the corner and he disappeared from sight.  He raised his hand, in blessing or farewell, she wasn’t sure.  She sighed glumly.  It was going to be a long four days.

 

“Ah, cheer up, Shep.  We’ll steal something to make you feel better.”  At the Commander’s skeptical look, the thief added, “Well, it always makes _me_ feel better.”

 

* * *

 

 

Thane wasted no time after Shepard disappeared with Kasumi.  He still had two bolt holes on the Citadel, one of them only ten blocks from Kolyat’s apartment in Zakera Ward.  He elected to walk a good portion of the way.  As he worked his way through the bustling Ward, old habits rose up like a comfortable set of clothes, staying in the shadows and dodging bodily contact without ever seeming to.  He felt the awareness that was almost like a sixth sense open up around him again.  It was as if he had been somnolent these past months on the Normandy and now was coming fully aware again, a predator stalking through the unsuspecting populace of the Citadel. Within an hour he had confirmed it was still secure.  He set down his weapons and made the rounds of the small apartment to double check his security and supplies.

 

While thoughts of Shepard darted pleasantly through the recesses of his memory, he focused on his primary mission:  finding out who was watching his son and why.  If it was anything other than the intel watch Shepard had predicted, they would pay dearly for their audacity.  

 

* * *

 

 

A twinge of worry settled between Shepard’s shoulders as she ascended the steps into Hock’s estate without Kasumi.  Well, it was a well-known maxim that no battle plan survived first contact with the enemy, and they had a backup plan.  Kasumi would infiltrate the estate on her own, maintaining radio contact with Shepard.  She pulled out all her confidence and added a sultry swagger to her step as she walked in the magnificent entrance hall.  

 

Hock’s tastes were extravagant and more than a little gaudy.  It clashed sharply with Shepard’s spartan tastes, but tonight she was Allison Gunn, and Ms. Gunn thought this was all simply marvelous.  

 

She meandered through the crowds with Kasumi’s snarky comments keeping her company, commenting on the various people she passed.  She was hard pressed not to laugh at some of the funnier ones.  With Kasumi’s voice in her ear, she cased Hock’s public rooms, eventually finding the vault.  “I could get to like this,” she whispered to Kasumi as the thief uncloaked and started evaluating the security measures.

 

Kasumi chuckled as she ran her scanner across the room.  “You say that now.  But I think you’d be bored after just ten minutes of sitting quietly waiting for a break to get across a room, never mind hours of staying still at a time.”

 

Shepard eyed the statue of Saren.  It was gaudy, just the thing to fit into Hock’s estate.  “You’re positive my gear’s in there?”

 

“For the hundredth time, Shep, yes, it’s in there.  Stop worrying about it.”

 

Shepard stepped to the door, then back to peer over Kasumi’s shoulder.  “How much longer?”

 

“See, you didn’t even make it thirty seconds.  Stick with being a soldier.  Okay, we’ve got to disable the power conduit, collect a DNA sample, and find the password.  Piece of cake.”  Kasumi disappeared as Shepard made her way back to the party.  “I’ve set your omni-tool to trace the power conduit.  See if you can find its junction box.”

 

Shepard wandered through the party, stopping to listen to the gossip occasionally as a pretext for scanning.  She also drew more than a few admiring glances, mostly from the human males.  One decided to start following her, making it annoyingly hard to scan for the junction box.  She finally pinpointed it and left it to Kasumi to disable as she headed to the open bar and tried to figure out how to dissuade her unwanted pursuer without breaking his head.

 

On second thought, she should have known better than to go to the bar.  As soon as she asked for a glass of wine, her admirer stepped up next to her. “Hey babe, did someone call God? Because I think he’s missing an angel.”  

 

She slowly turned and looked at him in disbelief.  “Tell me you did not actually utter the words I thought I just heard.”  Did this idiot really think that would work?  She heard Kasumi snicker over the comm.

 

He looked crushed.  He couldn’t have been more than twenty and still had that late adolescent awkwardness hanging about him.  She wondered if he was someone’s bodyguard let off the leash for a while.  Just as she was about to crush his hopes beneath her heel, a disturbingly familiar voice spoke up.  “I believe the lady and I have some business to discuss.  In private.”

 

Her mind boggled at his unexpected presence.  Reaching out to touch her elbow and guide her to a table was none other than her puppet master, the Illusive Man.  Close behind him like a dark shadow was another man, obviously a bodyguard, and with an impressive set of cybernetic enhancements, especially the goggles to enhance vision.  He was tall, dark haired, whipcord lean and of Asian ancestry, but it was the unmistakable aura of lethality that made her unwanted admirer stutter nonsensical words and disappear into the crowd as fast as he could.

 

Somewhat stunned, she allowed him to guide her to a table for two in the back.  His bodyguard took up position a few feet away, giving them a clear space to talk quietly.  Her brain finally engaged again as she took her seat.  “Well, well, well.  I never expected to see you outside the QEC.  What brings you out to play?”

 

“There are some marvelous contacts to be made at events like this, Ms. Gunn.”  He swirled an amber liquid inside a heavy cut glass tumbler, the ice cubes making a delicate tinkling sound that cut through the crowd noise.  

  
“I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, Mr....”

 

“Charles Kane,” he supplied.  At her arched eyebrow, he lifted his lips in a sardonic smile.  “It’s as good a name as yours today.”  She snorted unladylike, but he continued.  “You don’t give Miranda enough credit, you know.”

 

“Miranda is excellent at her job.  You should know.  I’m sure she sends you daily reports.”

 

He didn’t even blink at her jab.  “Through me, she has more contacts than Miss Goto.  She could have arranged for more support for you.  Very risky, don’t you think?  Bringing just a thief along as backup?  While I have been most impressed with your results, you must admit that you work best with strong backup agents.”

 

“This is Kasumi’s mission, Mr. Kane.  You hired the best thief in the galaxy, and she wants to pick up a little item.  Why do you think she can’t accomplish it?”

 

“It’s not Miss Goto’s skills I’m questioning.  It’s your lack of firepower when things inevitably turn violent around you,” he answered smoothly.

 

She rolled her eyes.  Why did no one in the galaxy seem to think she could perform a simple covert operation?  “I’ll be fine,” she responded brusquely.  “Hock won’t even know it’s gone until we’re well en route back to the Citadel.”

 

“I hope you’re right, Ms. Gunn.  Although at least if things go poorly, Miranda won’t have so far to go this time if she has to start over on you.”

 

Shepard’s wine glass snapped at the stem, spilling the blood red liquid all over the table.  “You bastard,” she breathed.  “Is that your plan for me?  Keep picking up my corpse and rebuilding it, sending me to do your bidding over and over?”

 

“I’d have thought you’d be happy to be alive again, Ms. Gunn.  Have I not given you everything I promised?  A ship, crew, weapons.  In return, all I ask is that you investigate a few problems for me.  I should think that you would consider that a bargain.  Even the Council didn’t give you so much support.”

 

She didn’t realize she was standing until a slim form in black interposed itself between her and the Illusive Man, the threat clear and unspoken.  She stared at the Illusive Man over his bodyguard’s shoulder.  Her feelings were so mixed up that she couldn’t find the words to say.  Being beholden to the smug SOB in charge of a group that she still associated with terrorist activities stuck in her craw so badly that it hurt, but that annoying ever-rational part of her brain was agreeing with him.  Running a few errands, even saving some lives on his behalf was a small price to pay for what he had given her. She couldn’t bring herself to say it, though.  The thought passed through her mind that the road to hell was paved with good intentions.  Instead she pivoted on her heel and walked away.  She and Kasumi still had a job to do.

 

As Shepard walked back into the party, the Illusive Man stood and headed back to the bar for a refill.  “You give her too much latitude,” the man in black said sharply as he followed close behind.

 

“I give her exactly as much as she needs and no more,” he answered curtly.  “Don’t forget, Leng, I’ve been planning this for years.  She’s doing exactly what I expected.”

 

“I still don’t know why you needed her.  I’m just as good as she is. Why not let me lead the team against the Collectors?”

 

“You probably could, if it was just the Collectors we were after, but she’s a piece in the bigger picture.  She’ll give us respectability.  That’s her true gift.  She makes people love her and trust her.  Even her association with us has barely tarnished her reputation with the general public, although it cut her off from the Alliance quite nicely.  Just as planned,” he said in a very satisfied tone as he sipped his drink.

 

“We both know the Alliance moves too slowly to do any good out here.  They’ll only move when they have incontrovertible proof.  Even then, they’ll have to negotiate and coordinate with the aliens.”  There was a heavy note of bitterness and sarcasm in Leng’s voice.

 

“Of course. That is the way of governments.  But we’ll use Shepard’s influence through her squadmates and connections to bring the alien governments in line, then pit them first against the Reapers.”  He continued laying out his points matter of factly.  “It only makes sense, of course, since they’re the ones with the larger militaries, more established colonies.  Even Shepard’s sacrifice of the Alliance ships to save the Council can be played to our advantage.”

 

Leng’s hand curled into a fist around his sword.  “She should have been hung as a traitor for that, not hailed a hero,” he snarled.  “Sacrificing six ships just to save three aliens who still don’t respect us.”

 

“Peace, Leng,” the Illusive Man said calmly, turning to look out at the party.  “That sacrifice bought us a Council seat, and Udina has proven to be most understanding.”

 

“Pity Shepard isn’t more understanding.  She owes you her life, and still acts like a spoiled bitch.”

 

The Illusive Man shrugged dismissively.  “She’ll come around.  She’s too practical not to, once she sees there are no other options.  Shepard’s already performing splendidly, even under duress.  I look forward to her performance when she finally accepts her role in the grand scheme of things.  In fact, it’s only a matter of time before she rejects the Alliance on her own.”

 

“She’s never going to accept working for Cerberus,” Leng disagreed.

 

“She will.  She just needs a way to save face doing it.  I’ve already accounted for it.  She’s running so hard to get away and doesn’t even realize I’ve already mapped her course for her.”

 

“What if she surprises you?”

 

The Illusive Man laughed dismissively.  “Hard to imagine, but if she does, well, once she finishes with the Collectors we have more options on how to handle her.  Now I think it’s time for me to take my leave.  I calculate you have about an hour before the fireworks start.”  He put his empty tumbler on the bar and walked out into the party.

 

“Me?” he asked, startled as he followed behind.

 

“Stay here and lend Shepard a hand.  I wasn’t joking when I said she needed backup.  The thief is good, but she’s no fighter, and Hock has a small army on his estate.  I need you to protect my investment.  We can’t afford to lose Shepard now.”

 

Leng’s thin lips twisted in a scowl, but he didn’t protest as the Illusive Man headed for the exit and an air taxi back to the spaceport and safety.

 

Leng muttered curses learned at his mother’s breast as he started assessing the situation.   He hoped Shepard was as good as everyone said.  Maybe she’d be able to keep up with him.   

 

It took him a few moments to locate Shepard.  She was lounging against the wall near Hock’s security office with another glass of red wine held languidly in her fingers.  She may have looked relaxed, but Leng saw the sharp look in her eyes as she constantly scanned the area.  He looked again and caught the telltale shimmer of a tactical cloak; the thief was cracking the lock on the door. He glided across the floor, positioning himself to provide additional cover for the thief.

 

“What are you doing here?” she asked in a low tone even as she gave him a fake smile.

 

“Helping,” was his short answer.

 

“For the love of pete, I don’t need any more help,” she grumbled.

 

He disagreed.  The Illusive Man had provided him a dossier on Shepard, and while he acknowledged her battlefield skills and N7 status, she had zero infiltration skills.  “Orders.”

 

“Well aren’t you the talkative one.  Got a name, or should I just yell ‘hey you?’”

 

He scowled.  “Leng.”  How much longer would it take the thief to open the door?  They were standing here too long.  Just then, the door slid open, and a shimmer of displaced air ghosted through the entryway.  Shepard followed, and Leng bit back a curse.  She didn’t have a cloak.  What did she think she was going to do?  Shoot the guards and hack the terminal with a roomful of party guests just outside?  She stopped just inside the door and reached out to grab his arm.  “Since you’re here, you can help,” she hissed as she yanked him into the room.

 

Immediately, the two guards in the room were on their feet.  One came around the desk, looking annoyed.  “That door’s locked.  How’d you get in here?”

 

Shepard giggled and wrapped her arm around his waist, causing Leng to shoot her a look of horrified surprise.  “No, it wasn’t,” she denied.  “It was open.  We were just looking for a little quiet place, if you know what I mean.”  She giggled again and hugged Leng closer.

 

“No, it’s set to automatically lock when it closes.”  He was frowning as he went past them to look at the door.  The other guard was on his feet, hand on his weapon.  Leng tracked the thief’s cloak as she went behind him and started hacking the terminal.

 

“Well then, you need to fire the guy who installed your security system, because it’s not working for shit, honey.  See?”   Shepard disengaged herself from him and managed to step directly in front of the security guard as he walked forward, causing them to collide.  He watched as she ‘accidentally’ dumped her glass of wine all over his front.  “Oh!  Look what you did!” she pouted.

 

“Watch it, bitch!” the guard yelled in disgust as he wiped at his sopping uniform.

 

Shepard drew herself upright and leveled an icy glare at the guard.  “What did you just say?” she asked, her voice turning into an unmistakable threat.  She had the full attention of both guards now, and the tension in the room shot through the roof.  She stabbed her finger into the chest of the guard in front of her.  “I’ll have you know I eat pissant little security guards like you for breakfast in the Terminus systems.  You will watch your language with me, mister, or so help me, I’ll break your nose, your arm, and your balls without a second thought and apologize to Hock about it later.”

 

Leng’s hand hovered over his sword.  He could decapitate the first guard, jump over the falling body and stab the second in just over three seconds, but that still might give the second guard a chance to fire his weapon.  If he did, the game would be up, and it would devolve into an all-out firefight.  Shepard sensed it, too, because she stayed as still as ice, glaring at the guard, daring him to make a move.

 

Finally the guard backed down.  “Look, ma’am, you really can’t be in here.  I’m, uh, sorry, but this room is off limits to party guests.  I really have to ask you and your friend here to leave.  Now.”

 

Kasumi’s tactical cloak really was quite exceptional, but Leng could still track the faintest shimmer as it disengaged from the terminal and slipped past the second guard.  It hovered just behind the first guard who was blocking her exit.  She couldn’t slip past without risking touching him and being discovered.  Time for him to engage.  He stepped up next to Shepard, forcing the guard to turn and face him.  “Come on.  I’m sure we can find someplace without quite so much…company.”  He took her arm and stepped closer to the guard, forcing him to retreat and give Kasumi some room.  “You should apologize to the lady before we leave,” he sneered, knowing how threatening he looked and utilizing it to his advantage.

 

The guard blustered, but everyone in the room knew that he’d lost face and power, and finally he stuttered out a weak apology.  Shepard turned regally and walked…no, strutted out of the room,  knowing full well that all eyes would be on her and not looking for any trace of a cloak.  He stalked out close on her heels.   As soon as the door slid closed and locked behind them, he grabbed her arm and yanked her to a halt.  “Good god, woman, what were you thinking?”

 

“It worked, didn’t it?” she answered with a smug grin.  “We’ve got Hock’s password with none the wiser.  You don’t like the way I work, you’re free to go.”

 

He grimaced.  He was under the Illusive Man’s orders, so was stuck with her until the thief recovered her item.  “What else do you need?”

 

There was a pause, presumably while Kasumi supplied the answer.  “A voice sample and a DNA sample.  I’ll go talk him up.  You see if there’s a way to get into his living suite undetected.”

 

Scowling, he headed out to check out the entrance to Hock’s living quarters.  As expected, there was a guard in front of a locked door.  He heard the thief’s voice close behind him, although she stayed cloaked.  “I’d prefer not to go in that way.  Too obvious, and Shep’s not the kind to come up with a convincing enough lie to get into Hock’s quarters”

 

“The woman’s about as subtle as a supernova,” he grumbled.

 

Kasumi laughed lightly behind him.  “You’re hardly the first to make that observation.  Come on, I spotted a way outside that I think we can exploit.”   He followed her nearly invisible shimmer out to the west patio.  There were guards posted, but not many.  With the columns and a tactical cloak, an infiltrator could easily sneak past them and get into the private gardens off Hock’s suite.

 

He cloaked and started to make his way past the guards, but Kasumi stopped him with a hand on his arm.  “Wait for Shepard,” she whispered.

 

“Why?” he demanded irritably.  “She’s no infiltrator.  I can get inside in just a few seconds.”

 

“You don’t have the right DNA scanner installed on your omni tool,” she countered.

 

“So you’ll go with me.  She can wait in the party until we get back.”

 

“We wait,” Kasumi insisted.  “I promised.”

 

“She’ll be discovered!”

 

“I’ve got a cloak for her.  She’ll be fine.”

 

Leng threw his hands up in disgust and skulked back to a hiding spot to decloak.  He went back inside and saw Shepard talking to Hock.  As he watched, it looked more like Hock was orating some egotistical speech to those in the room while Shepard looked on admiringly.  He sure as hell hoped she was acting.  Soon, Hock was surrounded by adoring groupies, and Shepard ditched Hock to appear by his side.  “Kasumi says she’s got enough for a voice sample and that she found a way in.  Show me,” she ordered.

 

He led her around to the west patio where the thief was waiting with a second cloak.  It wasn’t as high quality, but it would hide her as long as no one was looking directly at her.  He led the way to the garden entrance he had scouted earlier with Kasumi.  They vaulted easily over the wall, and Kasumi uncloaked to meet them there.  She scaled the wall and killed the security sensors on the window two meters above the ground.  She motioned them to follow her and slipped inside.  Leng knew he could easily make that jump, so he put his hands together in a stirrup for Shepard.  She ran a couple steps, and he boosted her up so she could follow Kasumi into the building.  His cybernetically enhanced legs made the two meter jump seem like child’s play.  The three of them ghosted silently down the stairs into Hock’s private quarters.

 

“Look for anything that might have his DNA,” Kasumi said quietly.  “Leng, keep an eye out on the hallway in case anyone comes in.”  He took up position where anyone incoming wouldn’t be able to see him until too late.  It also gave him a good view of the two women searching the room.

 

Kasumi beckoned Shepard over to Hock’s terminal.  “Here ya go, Shep.  Take Thane out somewhere nice.”  Shepard looked almost shocked. “Kasumi, it’s ten thousand credits.”  

 

“Hock will never miss it, Shep.  Besides, I told you we’d steal you something nice to cheer you up.”

 

Shepard smiled fondly at the petite woman then moved to examine the bed. “I almost hope I don’t find any DNA here,” she muttered and breathed a sigh of relief when her omni-tool flashed red.  She picked up the alarm clock and accidently set it blaring once before she could silence it.  Leng and Kasumi both glared at her as they watched the door for any sign that someone heard it.  “Sorry,” she muttered as she set it back down.  Leng decided it would be a miracle of the highest order if they actually made it out of Hock’s bedroom without shooting someone, let alone complete the objective without gunfire.

 

The Illusive Man’s pet project scanned the rest of the room, even the potted plant, ignoring the thief’s jibes. “You never know, he might have bled on it or something. Happens to me all the time,” she muttered.  She moved into the back room.  “Oooh, look at these antique swords.”  His interest was piqued, even as he heard the thief say any DNA there would be too contaminated by dust.  He slipped into the back room behind the two women to take a look at the swords.  

 

They were magnificent! Perfectly preserved specimens from several centuries ago, when everyone had to get up close and personal to do their killing.  These particular swords were a matched set from the late European Middle Ages, heavy with a cross-shaped guard and pommel made of bronze.  Life wasn’t fair, he often reminded himself.  The thief was there to steal something, but while he would kill to get his hands on these swords, there was just no way to carry them out of Hock’s estate while he was escorting Shepard and Kasumi.  Later, he promised himself.  He knew where they were.  He could come back on his own and appropriate them for himself.

 

“Got it,” Shepard announced, holding up a wineglass.

 

“Great.”  The thief ran a specialized tool over the glass and set it back down.  “That’s everything.  Let’s get back to the vault.”

 

Getting back was surprisingly easy.  Leng went over the wall first to distract the guards.  As long as he had the time, it was amusing to play tricks on such simple guards and have them chasing their own shadows.   He rejoined the other two in Hock’s vault as Shepard was changing into her armor, an unmarked matte black that would blend well in the shadows.  She was just finishing fastening the greaves and stepping into the armored boots.  She glanced at him as she fastened her Tempest SMG at her side.  Leng reassessed her.  She had gone from good looking floozy to deadly merc.  He had to admit he liked this version better.

 

“Here, take this,” she said, flipping a small comm unit to him.

 

He caught it out of the air with barely a glance.  “You always carry a spare comm with you on missions?”

 

She laughed for some reason as she answered.  “Actually, yes.  First time I’ve had to actually use it though.”

 

“What happened to the stealth mission?” he asked as he fitted the comm unit.  It was already set to their frequency.

 

“Still on.  We’re just planning on leaving out the back of Hock’s estate.  I’ll look like any other hired gun,” she said as she settled a featureless helmet onto her armor, concealing the distinctive flame red hair and well-known features of Commander Shepard.

 

He still didn’t have any confidence in their plan, but orders were orders.  He’d protect them until they got away.  There were times he really hated his job.

 

Hock’s treasure vault was a cavernous room filled with statues, arcane and ancient relics, and technology.  He smirked when Shepard picked up a Kassa M-12 Locust, although he took a second look at it when Kasumi said it was the gun that killed two presidents.  So that was why it had a prominent display in Hock’s vault.  Shepard replaced her Tempest with the Locust, patting it fondly as she settled it at her hip.

 

In a way, it was a relief when Hock’s massive holoprojection, surely a result of his inflated ego and probable tiny dick size, flickered on to taunt Kasumi.  It was everything he could manage not to laugh at the prick’s reaction when Shepard shot and destroyed some ugly pots and nearly sent Hock into an apoplectic fit.  He still thought she was a traitor, but she was beginning to grow on him.

 

He activated his cloak and sprinted down the display hall to get behind the guards.  They didn’t have a chance.  They were focused on Shepard standing foolishly in the middle of the room and didn’t even realize they were dead until his sword pierced their hearts and they dropped to the floor, still confused about what had happened.  

 

A boom shook the room and rattled his teeth.  That woman had some balls, setting off a grenade in Hock’s vault.  Of course, it also insured that he’d spare no effort in killing her now.

 

Shepard walked casually to the exit of the vault, stepping around the dead bodies.  “You know, I tried.  I really did.  Just once, I’d like to be able to say, hey, look at me.  I finished something _without_ fucking shooting anyone, but does it ever go my way?  No.”

 

They all headed out into the warehouse behind the vault.  Kasumi uncloaked to save power.  “Thane told me you didn’t shoot anyone when you helped him out on the Citadel.”

 

“I shot a lamp,” Shepard said.  Even over the comm, her voice sounded chagrined.  “Poor thing.  Gave its life so I could punch a kid in the jaw.”

 

“Can’t you two be quiet?” Leng hissed.  “We need to get out of here, preferably before Hock brings in reinforcements.”

 

“I like to talk when I’m shooting things,” Shepard countered.  “It’s when I stop talking you know things are bad.  Speaking of shooting things...LOKI mechs.”  She activated her tech armor and took out the first mech with a precisely placed burst into its control systems.  The second mech fizzed out as the thief overloaded its systems.  “Leng, see if you can get behind them while I draw their attention.”  
  
“Already ahead of you, Shepard,” he replied irritably.  Hadn’t she realized what he’d done in the vault?  She certainly did make a conspicuous target, making it that much easier to down the guards.  Between himself and the thief, they took out most of the guards while Shepard stood there and took potshots at them.

 

To Leng’s relief, Shepard did pick up the pace, jogging quickly through the warehouse, following the route marked on her omni tool by the thief.  They ran into another set of guards, but quickly dispatched them in the same manner.  Normally he preferred to work alone, but their three person team was proving devastatingly effective.

 

Finally they made it to the back of the estate.  “Kasumi, you any good at hot wiring one of these air cars?” she asked.

 

“Please, Shep.  The question you should be asking is do you want the Luxe 3000 or the Avant MK?”

 

“The black Luxe, I think.  Matches my armor today.”  She chuckled across the comm as they started to make their way across the roof and toward the valet parking lot.  A high-pitched whine drew all their attention.  “Fuck!” Shepard yelled as she dived for cover behind an air vent.  “Kasumi, he’s got a fucking gunship!  You didn’t tell me he had a gunship!”

 

Leng immediately activated his cloak as he took cover, too.  The gunship might not see him, but its weapon spread was impressive, and he was only wearing light armor.  He made sure he was far away from Shepard.  He peeked over the edge of a stack of crates just in time to see Donovan Hock laugh maniacally as he unloaded on Shepard’s position.  She was pinned down, but the air vent was providing decent protection, at least until he noticed more of Hock’s guards streaming through the doorway.  Shepard was completely exposed to their fire.  She immediately started taking them down, but she was entirely dependent on her shields and armor for protection.  “Leng, Kasumi!  One of you hack that door locked!”

 

He had no idea where Kasumi was, but he was close to the door.  “Don’t hit me,” he warned her over the comm as he quickly made his way back to the building.  There was another swarm of guards heading up the stairs, enough to overrun him, even cloaked.  Damn and double damn!  He’d heard this woman attracted trouble, but he didn’t particularly like seeing it first-hand.  

 

“Leng, duck!” Shepard yelled.  Years of Alliance and N training took over and he dropped to the ground.  Something sailed over his head through the doorway, and a gout of flame and smoke shook the ground.  He jumped to his feet ready to decapitate the next guard through, but Shepard’s grenade had been well placed and either killed or disoriented the guards in the room.  He took advantage of the lull and closed the door.  He didn’t have time to hack it locked, so he simply stabbed his sword through the control system.  

 

Shepard was fuming over the comm.  “This was _supposed_ to be a stealth op.  So why would I bring a missile launcher, Kasumi?”

 

“Going to be difficult to take down those shields without a heavy weapon,” the thief replied.    
  
“Ya think?” Shepard yelled back.  Leng growled to himself.  He enforced radio silence among his operatives on missions except when absolutely necessary, and this back and forth was getting on his nerves.

 

“I have an idea, Shep.  You keep his attention.”  Shepard was muttering various imprecations on Hock’s parentage and hygiene habits and anything else she could think of.  He couldn’t spot any sign of the thief.  Shepard was using her Locust and scooping up spare thermal clips from the downed guards, but she was going to have a hard time getting through the gunship’s shields with just her SMG.

 

Leng took a quick detour through the downed guards, finishing one off with his sword when the man unfortunately revealed himself to be not dead yet.  He grinned when he saw a missile launcher on one of them.  Evidently Hock liked his guards showy, well equipped and fairly inept.  “Shepard, catch!” he yelled, decloaking just long enough to toss her the missile launcher.  No way in hell was he going to fire the thing.  She seemed to like playing chicken with a gunship, so let her shoot it.

  
She caught it one handed with a whoop that hurt his ears.  She stood up to sight on Hock’s ship, ignoring the heavy caliber ammo that was fast wearing down her shields.  She fired and ducked behind cover just as her shielding flared out.  She played cat and mouse with Hock, popping up to fire at him, wearing his shields down.  Hock couldn’t target her quickly enough and was growing visibly and audibly frustrated.  Suddenly Kasumi flickered into sight sitting on top of the pilot’s canopy.  She did something with her omni tool and Hock’s shields dropped completely.  “Now, Shep!”  

 

Shepard stood up and fired, not even waiting for the little thief to get clear of the ship.  Kasumi flipped backward, giving Hock a wave just as Shepard’s missile penetrated the left engine, sending the gunship tilting down and crashing into the wall, causing a secondary explosion.  “Good riddance,” she said, sounding completely satisfied over the comm.  The thief decloaked at the edge of the roof, watching the gunship go down in flames.  It was hard to tell, but he decided she looked satisfied as well.

 

“Alright, kids.  Who’s ready to go home?” Shepard asked.  “Kasumi, I still have my eye on that black Luxe.”  She dropped the missile launcher at her feet as she headed toward the parking lot.  “Not one word of this to Thane, Kasumi.  You hear me?”

 

Leng wondered who the hell this Thane was who kept coming up in conversation, then shrugged internally.  The last thing he wanted was to get any more involved in Shepard’s life.  The woman was a menace to society.  So was he, Leng admitted to himself, but he preferred to think of himself as a surgeon, removing impediments quickly and quietly.  Shepard was more like a wrecking ball.  Looking around at the smoking roof littered with bodies, thermal clips, and busted crates, he hoped she did the same thing to the Collectors.  Maybe the Illusive Man had a point in picking her for this mission.  He shrugged again.  Didn’t really matter to him.  He needed to get back to base.  “You owe me a ride to the port, Shepard.”  

* * *

 

A/N:  I know nothing of Kai Leng except what was in ME3, so I’m adding my own details to his backstory and personality.   I always thought there should be more to him than a “mwa ha ha!” evil henchman.  This was fun to write, showing their completely opposed styles of fighting.

 

Also, I didn’t like the story play through of Kasumi’s mission, at least in the beginning.  Surely SOMEONE would notice gunshots going off and guards not reporting in.  This is supposed to be a _theft_ , after all.  Poor Shepard.  No one’s ever going to believe she can do something without gunfire and explosions.

 

Yes, I know the Illusive Man’s name is not Charles Kane, but he’s not about to use his real name any more than Shepard did.

  
Thank you to Orchidellia, my beta reader!


	28. Unfinished Business

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Milar asks Thane to give Kolyat some additional, off-the-books training. Kolyat doesn't react well to learning more of his father's secretive past. Admiral Hackett asks Shepard for a favor.

Thane was unsettled.  Events on Kahje had changed much in the last two years and he hadn’t kept up with it.  Failure to keep abreast of political situations was a good way to get killed, as he knew from past experience.  That he hadn’t set foot on the planet in over five years was no excuse.  It was still his home and the source of most of his contacts.  More importantly it was Kolyat’s home.  

 

It had taken him longer than he had expected, but with Liara’s help, he had been able to trace the trail on Kolyat back to a hanar group on Kahje.  They had ties with the more conservative Oligetti.  He met Milar that evening in her apartment to discuss it.  From the minute way she frowned, she hadn’t been aware of it either.  “Not your trace, then.”  He didn’t ask so much as confirm.

 

“No,” she answered shortly.  

 

Thane forced himself to remain still as he considered the matter.  “Will you tell him?”

 

“Will you?” she countered.

 

He paused to consider.  “You know this aspect of the Game better than I,” he admitted. “Telling him would likely cause him to alter his activities, tipping off his surveillance.  I will listen to your advice, but Milar, he is my son.  I will do everything I can to protect him.”

 

“I understand, Thane.  I am the same with Hama.  No, I won’t tell him, but I will tell Hama.  She takes after me in several aspects.  She will watch him where we cannot.  I do have a request to make of you, however.”  When he nodded his head, she continued, “You can protect him by teaching him what you can while you’re here.  Events are starting to move fast, both on Kahje and here.  Human SigInt is increasing rapidly, focusing on Shepard.  The salarians and STG have launched a new deep space research initiative.  They say it’s basic research, but the smart money is that they’re searching for verification of Shepard’s claims.  We’ve also learned the STG is at odds with the salarian Councilor, but not why.”

 

There was much to consider here, but all he said was, “Shepard and the Normandy are scheduled to return in two days.  That’s not much time to teach anyone anything.”  Briefly he thought of his teaching sessions with Shepard.  She was an astonishingly fast learner, but then again, she was already a trained soldier.   

 

“There’s never enough time, Thane.  You know that better than most.”  

 

He rumbled his agreement pensively.  “I must find Kolyat.  I have much to do in the time remaining.”

  
“Stay,” she told him.  “Hama is bringing him here soon.  Their relationship is a very convenient excuse to talk to him.”

 

Now he allowed himself to show a hint of displeasure.  “What exactly is their relationship?”

 

She laughed.  “They’re young adults.  What do you think?  I am simply taking advantage of what nature has provided.”  She laughed again at his expression.  “Just because you and I never had a normal childhood, we shouldn’t begrudge them theirs.”

 

“They’re not children,” he stated.

 

“No, they’re not.  Which is why they need to learn to stand on their own as soon as possible,” she responded.

 

He was slow to respond.  “Fatherhood is no easier now that he is older.”

 

She smiled ruefully.  “They never stop holding your heart, Thane.”

 

He was still contemplating that when Kolyat and Hama arrived.  Kolyat looked surprised to see him there, then looked suspiciously at Milar.  “My assignment?” he asked.  

 

She nodded her head.  

 

Once Thane and Kolyat were in an air taxi, he inquired of Kolyat, “Assignment?”

 

Kolyat straightened his shoulders and looking out the window, he said, “I work for her off the record.  Mostly surveillance, sometimes doing research.”

 

“Of your own free will?”

 

Kolyat glared at him.  “Of course.  She pays me.  Why wouldn’t I?”

 

Thane sighed internally.   _My son, still so innocent_ , he thought.  He hated the idea of Kolyat losing that, of seeing that cynicism sink even deeper into him.  Aloud, he only said, “I take it I am your assignment?”

 

Kolyat nodded stiffly.  “She told me she had something for me to do tonight and tomorrow.  She never tells me what until we speak in person or through Hama.”  After a long pause he added, “I take it this is more than just a social visit?”

 

“Milar thinks you need to learn what I can teach you.  Quickly.”

  
  
“Well that sounds ominous,” he said sarcastically happy tone.

 

“The path you chose is dangerous, Kolyat.”

 

“I can take care of myself.”  Thane was silent for far too long for his son’s liking.  “You don’t think I can.”

 

“I think you are unaware of all the dangers,” he said diplomatically.

 

Kolyat scowled and stared out the window.  Typical.  Everyone still saw him as either a child or a screw up, everyone except Hama, anyway.  When Hama messaged him that she was coming by, he’d hoped that it was because she wanted to and not because she was bringing another of her mother’s assignments.  Well, nothing had gone the way he’d expected since arriving on the Citadel, so why should tonight be any different?  He wondered what his father had in mind, but he was irritated at the cloak and dagger routine from both Milar and his father, so he decided to wait for his father to speak first.  Except that he didn’t.  Not until they arrived at his apartment.

 

Thane called up an electronic blocking program from his omni tool.  It was much more sophisticated that Shepard’s hacked version and happily not audible to drell hearing.  “Have you considered that your apartment may be bugged?” he asked.

 

“It’s not,” Kolyat answered testily.  At Thane’s questioning look, he added, “Hama checks it every time she comes over.”  The questioning look didn’t go away.  “She’s good, okay?  I trust her,” he muttered.

 

Thane only made a noncommittal noise and decided to drop the subject.  He was here to teach Kolyat what he knew, not pry into his son’s private life.  He could hardly take his son to task given the double life he himself had led so long.  “I’m giving you a program that will scramble electronic detection,” he said as he gestured for Kolyat to touch his omni tool to his.  “In case Hama is not around,” he added.  He spent a few moments showing his son how it operated.  

 

There was one more tool Thane needed to give his son before they could continue.  “This one is to mask your location via your omni tool.  It will simply not transmit your location to any local nets.  It’s not as clever as forging your location or identity, but those take time and resources to set up properly, and we have neither.”  He indicated Kolyat should activate it.

 

“Why?  Are we going somewhere secret?”

 

“Yes,” was the short answer.  

 

In spite of himself, Kolyat was interested.  He noticed that his father was acting differently from their previous engagements.  The difference was subtle and it wasn’t until they were on the street that he realized exactly what it was.  Gone was the somewhat apologetic and tentative persona.  In its place was someone who moved easily through the crowd without drawing attention to himself.  He didn’t look back to see if Kolyat was following.  

 

They walked several blocks.  Thane always stuck to the edges of the crowds, moving with the flow.  The area was devolving into one of the seedier parts of the ward.  Kolyat had paid as much as he did for his micro apartment because he didn’t want to have to spend his leisure hours in the same slums as Bailey had him patrolling in the beginning.

 

“Where are we going?” he asked.  His father made a short cutting motion with his hand to tell him to be quiet.  Thane turned down a side street and into a run down but still respectable tenement building.  Together, they walked up to the fourth floor.  It was empty and had a shabby air about it.  

  
“Watch closely,” Thane cautioned him.  He typed a lengthy pass code into the door lock.  Just inside the door, there was a DNA scanner and a second pass code.  The door slid closed behind them and Kolyat looked around at the apartment.  It was furnished as sparsely as his own and not much bigger, although it had a separate bedroom.  It had the musty scent of a room long closed off, even though he made out a small open suitcase on the bed.

 

“What is this?” he asked?

 

“My safe house.  One of several,” Thane admitted.

 

Kolyat took another look around.  He had never thought about it, but it made sense once he did.  “So what?  Like this is where you keep your weapons and such?”

 

“Yes,” Thane told him gravely.  He led him into the bedroom and opened the closet.  There was another hidden keypad with a yet another lengthy pass code.  The back of the closet slid open to reveal a number of weapons, mainly pistols and small SMGs.  There was one sniper rifle on the end, glossy and very high end.  “How much weapon training have you had?”

 

“Wait, wait,” Kolyat said, holding up one hand and stepping backward.  “You mean you have places like this across the galaxy, just little houses filled with guns?”

 

Thane faced him and nodded once, waiting to see how his son would react to such a visible confirmation of what had only been tangentially discussed before.  “Guns.  Credits.  Medi gel.  Supplies I might need.  Even alternate identities.”  

  
Kolyat stepped back until he was nearly in the living room and his head swiveled side to side as he tried to take it all in.  “How...how did you set all this up?  I mean, I didn’t think that carpentry for assassins was a common listing in the service directory.”

 

Thane shrugged.  “I did it myself.  For a while, after you were born, I tried to earn a living as a builder, but my skill set was too limited there.  I could not support you and your mother.  That’s why I turned to freelancing.”

 

The room was silent while Kolyat thought.  “You never meant for me to see this, did you?”  Thane shook his head.  “But now I have.  You think I’m in danger.” he said flatly.  “Why?”

 

“Think, Kolyat.”

 

There were only a few reasons, easily named.  “I’m your son.  You’re working with Shepard.”  Thane nodded and gestured for him to continue.  “I’m dating Hama, the daughter of the drell ambassador and primary aide to the hanar ambassador.”

 

“You’re very well connected for such a young man, Kolyat.  

 

“I feel like a pawn,” he said, glowering at nothing.

 

“A pawn is someone who is manipulated against their will, either through ignorance or weakness.  Will you be such a pawn?”  Kolyat shot him an angry look.  “That is why you are here,” Thane told him. “I have two days to give you as much information as you are willing to learn.  The rest will be up to you and Milar.”

 

Kolyat took another step back.  “I...I need a moment,” he said before he turned and walked into the kitchenette.

 

Thane let him go, sorry for the pain his son was going through, but unable to see another way to protect him.  He had to tear down Kolyat’s innocence about the ways of the world.  His son was already cynical, but still placed too much faith in his own people.  The ones closest to you were the ones who could wound you the deepest.  Suppressing a sigh, he lifted a pistol from the rack along with a cleaning kit and sat down at the kitchen table.  Silently, he pushed them in Kolyat’s direction.  His son got the message and sat down to take apart the gun and reassemble it.  Thane waited until it was completely reassembled before he spoke again.  “In my line of work, muscle memory is even more important than eidetic memory.  You must practice the motions so often that they flow without thought, whether it’s weapons or hand to hand.  If you feel capable, I will take you to a practice facility and teach you some of my combat techniques.  It will be up to you to practice them diligently afterward.  That is the way you will protect those you care about.”

 

Kolyat glanced suspiciously up at his father, wondering if he was talking about Hama in particular, but he could glean no indication from the older drell.  “I’m ready,” he said.  It seemed like every day he was being pulled further and further into the murky currents of politics, and it was making him very uncomfortable.  Unfortunately, he could see no way out of it, short of returning to Kahje, and even then, he had a sneaking suspicion that whatever trouble was brewing would find him there just as easily.  He would take what his father could teach him; it was undeniably valuable.  However, he swore to himself that he would never use it the way his father had.

 

* * *

 

His father was even rougher and more unforgiving than his embassy instructors.  Kolyat was sore all over and had numerous bruises, although he’d refused to admit as much to his father or ask for a break.  They’d spent almost two days together, practicing weapons, hand to hand, and talking.  It was longer than all the hours they’d spent together since Irikah’s death so many years ago.  They were talking more easily to each other now, sometimes even inquiring into random bits of personal history.  Finally his father asked the question Kolyat had been expecting.

 

“What is your relationship with Hama?”  The question was blunt, although Thane looked as if the answer didn’t matter to him.  Maybe it didn’t.

 

Kolyat shrugged.  “We hang out.  Talk.  Go out to eat.  Why?” he challenged.  “What does it matter to you?”

 

Thane blinked once, the sole indication that he might have been surprised by Kolyat’s challenge.  “I simply wanted to know more about your life,” he said quietly.

 

“You’re not going to say I shouldn’t date her?  Warn me about the dangers of the heart?”

 

To his surprise, Thane laughed and shook his head.  “I am the last one to speak of such things.  The heart knows what it wants.  The question is whether you should allow it to lead or not.  Hama is like her mother in many ways.”

 

Kolyat had trouble picturing Milar being so carefree and impulsive and said so.

 

Thane quirked a smile.  “Let me tell give you a memory of Milar.”  His head tilted to the side and his eyes unfocused.  The words came quickly.  “ _Eight years old.  Full of mischief.  Determined to find ways around any rules.  Steals secrets from Krieg, not for the first time, only minor secrets.  Leaves them out for all to see.  Ruins Krieg’s training plans for the next week.  Tells him he needs to be able to adapt to unforeseen circumstances.  Throws his own words back at him.  Smug.  Hero of other trainees for finding a weakness in those who pretend they have none.  Punishment light because ultimately she was right.  Knows the system as well as any.  Everything is exploitable, she says._ ”  He focused again on Kolyat.  “She’s a master at understanding and manipulating people.  Ultimately, I think she does it for a higher purpose, to advance the cause of the drell.  Still, I would beware of her requests.  What is good for the drell may not be good for the individual.”

 

Kolyat stared at the wall.  “I’ve got it,” he groused.  “You don’t have to keep treating me like a kid who doesn’t know anything.”

 

Thane’s humor disappeared like water on sand.  “It was not intended that way, Kolyat.”

 

Kolyat stood abruptly and went to the cooler for a drink.  He hadn’t meant to snap like that, but he seemed unable to help himself when he was around his father.  As long as they were on sensitive topics, he might as well ask the one that had been nagging him for days, ever since Hama had put the bug in his ear.  “What about you and Shepard?”

 

“Shepard is my employer,” his father responded, but Kolyat caught a hint of something else in his subvocals.  

 

“Is that all?”

 

Thane just looked at him with the same expression that made him feel nine years old again and he had said something rude.  “What are you really asking, Kolyat?”

 

He shuffled his feet on the carpeting.  Crap, he hadn’t really meant it to come out this way, but now he was stuck.  “I mean, is that _all_?”

 

His father was silent for a long moment, making Kolyat’s stomach tense up.  “I was recruited by Shepard many months ago.  Since then, I have served as part of her crew and accompanied her on several missions.  I have seen her rescue innocent people as well as destroy numerous threats to peace and happiness.  She has gone out of her way to help the members of her crew resolve problems they could not have managed alone, and each time, she is happy to do so, even if it puts her own life in danger.”  Thane looked up at his son.  “I see in her Arashu’s angel, a siha.  I have pledged to help her in her mission, no matter what.”

 

Kolyat’s stomach twisted into knots.  “That’s what you called Mother,” he stated, hating that his voice trembled a tiny bit.

 

“I have been blessed to know two sihas in my life,” Thane acknowledged calmly.  Kolyat wished like hell he could be that calm.  Failing that, he wished his father would actually show some damn emotion so he wouldn’t feel so alone.  

 

“What, are you sleeping with her, too?” he accused.

 

“Any relationship with Shepard would have nothing to do with the fact that I perceive her to be a siha.”

 

All Kolyat heard was yes.  “How could you do that?  How can you ignore Mother?” he grated out.

 

Thane sighed.  “Kolyat, I have many wonderful memories of your mother.  I loved her with all my heart and still do, but you know we must never live in the past.  It brings nothing but pain and eventual madness.”

 

“She was the best thing in both our lives!”

 

There was a pause before he replied.  “I know you miss her, Kolyat, and loved her as your mother.  But I also loved her as a wife and a soulmate.  Do not make light of my loss.”

 

“It’s your fault she’s gone!” he burst out, unable to hold back any longer.  So many years he had mourned her loss, even though he never knew why she had been killed.  A random act of violence, he had been told when he was younger.  Tragic.  Unexplainable.  But then he found out the real reason, and there were times he felt he could never forgive his father.  He turned away to stare at the blank wall, struggling to control his breathing.

 

He didn’t even realize his father had moved until he heard his voice come from near the door.  “I know.  I live with that every day,” his father said emotionlessly.  He heard the door slide open, and whirled around in time to see Thane step out into the hallway without a backward look.  He wanted to say something, but he didn’t know what.  Before he could sort it out, the door closed and he was alone.

 

* * *

 

The Normandy was her home now, Shepard thought as she relaxed on her bed.  It had actually been fun being Allison Gunn for a while, but she couldn’t hold that persona for long.  She was glad to be back, to hear Kelly’s chipper inquiry about her mission, to see Rupert happily restocking the galley, ribbing Jack about her time off on the Citadel.  They still had a few hours before they had to lift off, and she’d been surprised to see Jack.  Usually she waited until the last moment to board the Normandy, almost as if daring them to leave her behind.  She’d picked out a gift for Jack on Beckenstein, a new leather jacket that she thought Jack would appreciate.  The young woman hadn’t bothered to say thanks, instead, snapping about it being a way to buy her off, but she’d seemed smugly pleased at having something as obscenely expensive as anything from Beckenstein.  Later, she’d worn it when she appeared in the mess.  Shepard counted that as a win.  

 

She fully expected this to be the last time they stopped at the Citadel before going after the Collectors, and there was one more bit of business she had to take care of before they left.  She selected her clothes with care.  Casual clothes, nothing with a Cerberus insignia.  No armor, since she was only intending to stop by the human embassy.  She fitted the small caliber pistol harness under her shirt.  Before she headed off the ship, she stopped by Life Support.

 

To her surprise, Thane opened the door shortly after she chimed.  Her whole world brightened, and she wrapped her arms around him.  “You _are_ here.  I thought you’d come up to my cabin when you got back.”  She melted as his arms came up to hold her tight.

 

“I apologize, siha.  I felt the need to meditate when I came back.”

 

She pulled back slightly to look at him.  “Am I interrupting?”

  
He shook his head and kissed her gently.  “Never,” he whispered.  His hand closed around the pistol nestled in the middle of her back, and he raised an eyebrow ridge.  “You are leaving the Normandy,” he stated.

 

She nodded.  “Unfinished business.  I thought you might like to come with me, and we could go out to dinner afterward.  Shouldn’t take me too long.”

 

“Of course,” he nodded.  “You have only to ask.”  He also picked up his pistol and settled it at his hip under his jacket.  “Where are you going?” he inquired.

 

She headed out the door ahead of him.  “Human embassy.  I need to see Admiral Hackett.”

 

Thane nodded as he followed behind.  He was glad she was finally getting rid of the dog tags.  He had seen her glance at them as they sat on her shelf far too often for his liking.  He pondered if he could convince her to put her old N7 helmet somewhere out of sight.  There were times he couldn’t fathom her decision to keep such a painful memento in constant view.  There were memories that if he could erase, he would do so gladly, or at least soften them so they didn’t have the full impact when he thought back on them.  He wondered what it would be like to forget things little by little over the years.  With a sharp internal shake of his head, he forced back the memories that always threatened to rise when he became maudlin.

 

As they approached the embassy, Shepard turned to Thane.  “I need to do this alone.”

 

He looked resigned.  “I know.  I will wait here.”  He found a dark spot to wait and watched her enter the embassy.  He knew she felt strongly about her service loyalty and had been deeply conflicted for months about working for Cerberus.  He could care less about military rules and traditions, but for her sake, he wished things were easier between her and the Alliance military.

 

Hackett was waiting for her.  She stopped in front of his desk and saluted.  “Admiral.”  

  
“Commander,” he responded, and she fell into parade rest.

 

“I have something for you, sir.”  She placed the bag of dog tags belonging to the fallen crewmen of the SR1 on his desk.  He barely glanced at it as he placed it on the table behind him.

 

“Thank you, Commander.  You’ve provided a commendable service for their families and for the Alliance.  I’m glad you came by.  I have something I wish to discuss with you.”

 

She did her best not to tense up.  Admirals never engaged in small talk with marines.  “Yes, sir?”

 

“What I’m about to tell you is very sensitive information, Commander.  It goes no further than this room.” He waited until she nodded her acceptance.  “The Alliance has a deep cover operative in batarian space.  Her last message says that she had evidence of an imminent Reaper invasion.  We just found out she lost her cover and was arrested on terrorism charges by the batarian Hegemony.  I need someone to go in and get her out.”

 

Shepard took one step backward and crossed her arms over her chest.  “I thought the Alliance didn’t believe in the Reapers.”

  
“We don’t.  Officially,” Hackett told her.  “But I've known Dr. Kenson a long time, Shepard.  If she says she has proof, then I believe her.  This could be the turning point you need.”

 

“Me?” she asked skeptically.  “I've brought you plenty of proof before now.  The Alliance has refused to consider it.  Why should this be any different?”

 

“Look, Shepard.  I need someone to go in and get her out.  I’m not going to leave her to hang at the hands of the batarians.”

 

“So send in some marines,” she challenged.  “Why come to me?”

 

“If I send in a team of marines, it will be seen as an act of war against the Hegemony.  This has to be done off the books.  I need you to go in alone and rescue Dr. Kenson.”

 

“You’re already halfway to war, if she’s blown her cover.  You’d be better off trying diplomacy rather than send in a single operative.  Besides, you know my MO.  I don’t work alone, and I’m no good at stealth,” she admitted with a grimace, thinking back to Hock’s estate.

 

Hackett shook his head and sank into his chair.  “We’re trying diplomacy as we speak, but it’s not going well.  Our analysts say there’s a ninety percent chance she’ll be executed before any diplomatic options can be exercised.”

 

Shepard thought about the implications.  If Hackett was correct and a Reaper invasion was imminent, everything in her was urging her to head out as soon as possible.  But something wasn’t adding up.  She was the wrong person for the job.  There were other N7s out there, several of them with infiltration skills that would be much better suited to this mission.  In addition, the batarians hated her with a vengeance.  She’d already skirted a couple of attacks from them as a result of her actions on Elysium against batarian slavers all those years ago.  If she was caught, she’d be executed.  The only question was if it would be fast or slow.  In addition, Hackett’s sudden turn around on the Reapers was ringing alarm bells.  If he didn’t accept the proof of Sovereign crashing into Tayseri Ward, what could Kenson have discovered that would change his mind?  

 

No, she had her own mission to manage, and she couldn’t afford to deviate from it.  Besides, what she had to tell him next would negate his request.  “I’m sorry, Admiral.  I respectfully have to decline your request.”  She was expecting his gawping look of surprise.  N7s didn’t turn down ‘requests’ from admirals.  Ever.  She followed it up by placing a datapad on his desk.  “I’m resigning my commission, Admiral, effective...well, effective two years ago, I suppose, but I’m making it official today.”

 

“You...you can’t do that, Shepard.”  In a way, it was amusing to see an admiral stutter and at a loss for words.  It was definitely a rare sight.

 

“Actually, you did it for me, sir.  The Alliance paid my death benefits to my brother.  I’m still listed as deceased in the system, even after eight months.  I’m a Spectre now, reconfirmed by the Council.  I’m investigating the disappearance of human colonies in the Terminus systems, something the Alliance still isn’t devoting full resources to.  I’m sorry, Admiral, but I have other priorities, and I can’t help you.”  Strange how freeing those words were.

 

“You serve the Alliance, Shepard,” Hackett blustered.

 

“Served, Admiral,” she corrected calmly.  “I have a wider perspective now.  I have the safety of the galaxy to consider, not just the Alliance.  I can’t be constrained by being just an Alliance Commander anymore.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a mission to complete.  And if having an entire Reaper ship crash into the Citadel isn’t proof enough for you, I’ll see if I can’t bring back the Collector ship to give you a little more evidence.”  She didn’t try very hard to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.  “Maybe the other races will be a little easier to convince.  I’ve already seen that the human military seems to be least likely to back me up.  Maybe once I get the turians, asari and salarians to play along, the Alliance will wake up and smell the roses.  Good day, Admiral.”  It was dreadfully hard to ignore years of ingrained habit, but instead of saluting, she nodded her head politely, turned around and walked out of his office.  

 

Shepard headed for the doors, deep in thought.  This was something she’d been kicking around since Alchera, but now that she’d actually done it, her thoughts were in a whirlwind.  Thane materialized at her side as she reached the bridge, and she appreciated his silent, but solid presence.  

 

“Where to, siha?”

 

Where, indeed?  It felt like her entire world had just opened up.  She laughed out loud, drawing a look of surprise from her assassin.  “How about the Presidium Troika?”

 

Thane raised an eyebrow ridge questioningly.  “Who’s paying?” he asked teasingly.  She had named what was probably the most expensive restaurant in the Citadel, which was saying something, and he remembered all too well her complaints about not having her own accounts set up.  Apparently, she had rectified that, because she laughed again and winked at him.  
  
“Donovan Hock, courtesy of Kasumi.  I’ll fill you in on all the delightful details of Kasumi’s mission over dinner.  Pity we don’t have time to get a fancy hotel room afterward,” she said as she laced her fingers around his.  

 

Over an outrageously expensive dinner, Thane watched with joy at the animated way she described Kasumi’s heist, and eventually teased the details of the gunship and inevitable (as he saw it) explosion from her.

 

Eventually, the talk turned back to the Alliance.  “Do you have any regrets?” he asked after she filled him in on her resignation.  

 

She shrugged and gazed into the distance.  “Some.  The Alliance has been my whole life, even when I was a kid.  It was all I knew since my mother was an officer.  It feels...strange.  Not confining, but scary as well as freeing.”

 

“It sounds like what I went through when I asked to be released from the Compact.  The structure was all I had ever known.  It provided everything for me, and then suddenly, I was on my own.  I know exactly how you feel.”

 

Her omni tool flashed with an urgent message.  She frowned as she read it through.

 

“Trouble?” Thane rumbled.  He sounded unsurprised, as if trouble was a constant part of her life.  Then again, it was.

 

“No.”  She drew out the word, letting it almost sound like a question.  She read it again.

 

_Commander Shepard, I hope you get this before you leave the Citadel.  Can we meet for a few minutes?  I know we haven’t talked much since the first time we met, but I have a few things I need to tell you.   Kolyat Krios._

 

She’d created a special filter to bypass Cerberus message blocking for her crew’s family members, at least the ones she knew about, like Garrus’ sister, Solana and Miranda’s sister, Oriana.  The one she’d never in a million years expected to message her was Thane’s son.

 

“Your son wants to talk to me.” she told him.  “Any idea why?”

 

Thane stilled in that way she’d come to know meant he was locking down all his emotions.  “We argued earlier today.  I did not expect him to contact you directly.”

 

“Must have been some argument.  I didn’t think he liked me very much, certainly not enough to want to talk to me about...whatever.”  She was perplexed, and looking at Thane, he didn’t seem inclined to clarify things.

 

“Will you speak with him?” Thane wanted to know.

 

She lifted one shoulder.  “I don’t see any reason to say no.”  She looked at him, daring him to give her a reason, but he stayed silent.  He only nodded his acceptance.  She messaged Kolyat back, telling him to meet her at the passenger lounge nearest the Normandy in two hours.  “So where were we?” she asked with a crooked grin.

 

They continued on, but the easy flow of their conversation was gone, and even though Thane wouldn’t admit it, she could see he was bothered.  She started giving serious consideration to walloping Kolyat for whatever he had said to Thane earlier.

 

So when she was sitting in one of the hard, uncomfortable plastic chairs in the passenger lounge, her mood was less than charitable.  Kolyat stopped at the entrance, appraising her for a moment before he walked in and sat next to her.  “Thank you for meeting me, Commander.”

 

“Call me Shepard,” she said.  “I’m not a commander any longer.”

 

He looked puzzled, but let it pass.  “Shepard, then.  I don’t have much to say.  It’s just that...”  He trailed off, looking lost.  “The word around the embassy is that you’re going on a suicide mission.  If that’s true...I mean...why?” he floundered, unable to form the questions that were obviously running around his head.  

 

She sympathized.  She’d had a few moments like that herself.  “It’s not a suicide mission, Kolyat.  It’s a high risk mission, yes, but I have every intention of coming back.”

 

Some of the tension flowed out of him.  “Do you really think you will?”

 

She gave him a half smile.  “Of course.  I’m Commander fucking Shepard, you know.  Only without the Commander now, granted.”  He still looked tense.  She sighed.  “What can I do for you, Kolyat?”

 

“I just ...how can you be so sure?”    
  
After spending so much time with Thane, watching his son was like reading an open book with big print.  “Part of the reason I’ve spent so long preparing is that I’m getting the best operatives in the galaxy and equipping them with the best weapons and gear.  I’m not going into this blindly or ill-prepared.  Besides, as I told your father when we met, I make a habit out of doing the impossible.  Have faith, Kolyat.”  

 

“Can I ask you a question, Comm...Shepard?”  He wouldn’t meet her eyes.

 

“You can ask,” she said warily.

 

“Are you and my father...I mean...do you feel something for him?”

 

She felt like she’d been gut punched.  If this is what Thane and Kolyat had argued about, she wished Thane had given her a heads up.  Although if she’d thought about it more, she might have guessed.  She tried to phrase her words carefully.  “I care about all of my crew, Kolyat.  Your father, Garrus, Grunt, they’re my family.  I’d do anything for any one of them.”

 

He clenched his hands into fists on his thighs.  “It’s just that...he didn’t say anything, but...”  She could tell he was screwing his courage up.  Was she really that scary, she wondered?  “Look, I said something to him.  Earlier today.” His admission was morose.  “I wanted to meet you today, to see if you really thought you had a chance.  To find out if he would be coming back.”

 

She blew out her breath in a long sigh.  The kid was obviously upset, but it was time for him to grow up.  “Kolyat,  if you’ve got something to say to him, you’d better say it now.  Take it from someone who’s been there.  You never know how many tomorrows you’re going to get.  No matter how good you are, there’s always the chance that things could go sideways.  You don’t dwell on it, but you have to accept it.”  He wouldn’t look at her, staring at a scuffed up floor tile by his boot.  “I don’t know exactly what you and Thane argued about today, but you need to straighten things out with him.  We’re going through the Omega 4 relay soon, and I don’t want him distracted by thoughts of his son over something stupid.  Being distracted or depressed is a good way to end up dead, so if you care about your father, you need to man up and apologize.”

 

He shook his head and retreated into his seat.  “I can’t.  Listen, can you just tell him I’m sorry?”

 

“No.”  He glanced up in surprise.  “Not only that, but hell no.  You want it to mean something, do it yourself.”   He stayed quiet.  “He loves you, Kolyat.  He’s told me that many times.  He did what he thought was best, and now he’s trying to make amends.  He could have just stayed away, you know.”  He nodded grudgingly.

 

“Come on,” she said, standing up.  He looked up, puzzled.  “You’ll have the bonus of telling Hama what the Normandy and her crew of crazies is like.”  

 

He had risen to his feet with her, but still was confused.  “The Normandy?”

 

“Yep.  You’re coming on board.  We’ve still got a few hours before we lift.”  She walked to the door and turned around, seeing him still in place.  “Move it.  We don’t have all night.”

 

Like most civvies, he jumped at the sound of her command voice and found himself trailing along behind her.  She led him through the Normandy, and as they walked toward Life Support, she said, “Kolyat, at least give him credit for trying to make things right with you.  You have no idea how rare that is in the galaxy.”

 

She stepped back as the Life Support door slid open, letting Thane see his son.  His eyes widened in surprise before he shot her an accusing glance.  She grinned openly at him.  “You’ve got two hours before Kolyat needs to be off the ship.  Keep him out of the AI core, and I’d stay out of Grunt’s space, if I were you.  And Zaeed’s.  And Jack’s.  In fact, Kolyat, just stay in Life Support.  It’s safer,” she finished with a wink and turned to leave them to work things out.  She rather expected she’d hear about it from Thane in a couple hours, but she was hopeful they could sort things out.

 

* * *

 

A/N: Thank you to Orchidellia at ff dot net, my beta reader!


	29. Loss of Data

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The illusive Man has one last mission for Shepard and her crew before they go through the Omega 4 relay, and it's a big one.

There was a geth on her ship.  

 

Sometimes she couldn’t help but second guess herself and this was definitely one of those times.  Tali was having kittens down in engineering and Miranda was intimating that this wasn’t one of Shepard’s best decisions.  The N7 armor patching the hole its side kept bothering her.   Garrus had confirmed that it was indeed her armor from Alchera.  Damn, that cursed planet would not leave her alone!   

 

The geth had talked her into deciding the fate of its six and a half million brethren.  These heretics, as Legion called them, had made the decision to serve the Reapers.  Legion’s ‘people’, the original geth, rejected the Reapers’ offer, choosing to make their own way in the galaxy.  In the end, she had been the one to order Legion to alter their programming.  With a digital wave of her hand, she had forcibly rewritten the minds of six and a half million sentient beings.  

 

Ordering the rewrite had been a split second decision.  If she rewrote the heretics, she would add more strength to the geth against the Reapers, but she risked segments of the heretic code infecting all the geth.  Legion assured her that wouldn’t happen, but...

 

One thought that stuck in her mind at that crucial moment was an earlier conversation with Legion.  It had stated that deleting the heretic geth platforms would be a devastating loss of data for the rest of the geth collective.  Deleting them would forever remove the possibility of knowing their history, of increasing the complexity of the geth as a whole.  They would forever be reduced, even if they designed and assembled new platforms.  The geth would never fully understand the heretics’ decision to follow the Old Machines and learn from it.  

 

EDI spoke.  “Commander, the Illusive Man wishes to speak with you on an urgent matter.”

 

Shepard sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.  “It’s always urgent with him.  Fine, fine, tell him I’ll be down in a couple minutes,” she said as she levered herself out of her chair.

 

Within a few seconds of entering the conference room, the light flickered on the QEC and she saw the Illusive Man.  For a change, he was standing and the ever present cigarette and drink were missing.  Instead, he had a data pad in his hand.  “Shepard, good.  I need you for an urgent mission.  Fortunately, it’s not far from your current location.  It’s on Chasca, in the Matano system.  I’m forwarding the coordinates and as much data as I have to you through the QEC.”

 

“Why don’t you tell me what it is you want me to do, first?”  She had never seen him this discomposed before.  It was an interesting sight.  She watched carefully, trying to discern what he wasn’t saying.

 

“A band of mercs raided one of my science facilities.  They made off with some research and prototype weapons being developed for a client.  The security staff managed to protect most of the researchers and staff, but the mercs kidnapped the project leader.”

 

She shrugged, although it was hard to see through the armor and QEC pixilation.  “So?  You lost a couple of weapons.”

 

“It’s not just a couple of weapons, Shepard.  These prototypes represent an advanced leap forward in technology.  If this technology is sold on the black market, it will give pirates and mercs a decided combat advantage over established military powers.  I’m pretty sure you don’t want to see that happen.”

 

Something was niggling at the back of her mind as she watched him pace in the small QEC space.  Weapons prototypes weren’t cheap.  He was developing these for someone, and Cerberus didn’t have its own army, last she checked.  Security forces, yes, but...”Your client’s the Alliance government, isn’t it?” she deduced.

 

He stopped and looked up.  “Very good.  I knew there was more to you than just an expert marksman.  Care to continue that train of thought?”

 

She clenched her fist against her thigh.  “Cerberus is on the watch list, sometimes considered a terrorist organization, depending on the political winds and who’s in power.  Your science facility, therefore, is a puppet organization, tied to Cerberus through layers of obfuscation, dummy corporations and paperwork.  You get the money.  The Alliance government keeps their hands clean.”

 

“Politicians are very fastidious creatures, Shepard.  I’m sure you’ve noticed that by now.  Fickle, as well.  But none of that negates the fact that if this technology reaches the black market before the Alliance has a chance to produce it, soldiers and even entire colonies will be at risk of piracy like never before.  You know humanity has a lot of enemies out there, especially in the Terminus systems.  I need you to get that data back and destroy the pirate base.  Preferably with extreme prejudice.”

 

“Thereby sending a message,” she finished for him.  “Don’t fuck with Cerberus.”

  
“I prefer to think of us as humans, Shepard.  We’re all in this together, regardless of our political affiliations.”

 

Her lips were pressed together in a thin line, angry at being drawn into another one of his spider webs.  “Why not just let me bomb it from space?  Be a lot easier.  Not to mention safer.”

 

“We need to know if they’ve transferred the data anywhere else.  You’ll need to take your tech specialists there and scrub the data feeds.  In fact, you’ll probably need your entire team.  The base is one of the Suns’ biggest.”

 

“I don’t like this,” she stated curtly.

 

“Neither do I,” he responded, surprising the hell out of her.  “I don’t like risking my investment at a crucial time, but if we don’t take care of this now, we’ll be at war with ourselves before the Reapers ever show up.  If that happens....well, I don’t think I have to tell you what the outcome will be.”

No, he didn’t.  They risked the established power structure being undermined just when they needed every government and colony as strong as possible.  Ultimate loss of data, she thought to herself.  Bastard knew just which strings to pull with her.

 

“I’ve got a security team en route, Shepard, but you’re closer.  I wish you luck.  Oh, and Shepard...make sure and wear your unmarked armor.  Don’t want them to think the Alliance is after them and spook them into sending the data out early.”  He looked at her with a curiously searching expression that she couldn’t puzzle out through the QEC pixilation.  Then he was gone.

 

She sighed and scrubbed her hand through her hair.  “EDI, ask Garrus and Miranda to meet me here immediately and put up everything the Illusive Man sent you on the display.  We’ve got a battle to plan.”

 

* * *

 

 

The shuttle was crowded and the atmosphere was tense.  Never before had Shepard brought her entire team on one mission, and that fact alone put everyone on edge.  They’d gone over the mission specs in the conference room just before getting on the shuttle, and everyone knew their jobs.  Shepard had divided everyone into four separate teams, and with her squad leaders, put together what she expected was a successful battle plan to take the base.

 

“This will not be easy,” she’d warned them.  “Go in heavy, go in hard.  Take no prisoners and inflict maximum damage.”  Most of her squad looked grimly pleased at those orders.   She, Garrus, and Miranda had agreed that, although unexpected and unwanted, this mission would make an excellent test run for the Collectors.  It would give them all a chance to work together and make sure any communication bugs were worked out.

 

Their plan relied on a multi-pronged, two part surprise attack.  They would make the drop in the Kodiak while the Normandy moved to a far orbit to stay out of sensor range.  EDI and Joker planned to use the down time to install the IFF from the derelict Reaper.    

 

The shuttle pilot brought them in low and fast, thundering over the uninhabited landscape.  The Kodiak wasn’t fitted for stealth, but with this flight path, the Suns would have less than sixty seconds warning before Shepard’s team was on them.

 

The pilot gave a two minute warning.  Shepard looked at Garrus and Miranda, her other squad leaders.  They each nodded at her.  She glanced at Thane and Kasumi, her stealth team.  Neither of them had military experience, so rather than try and assign one of them as the leader, she’d simply given them their assignment and told them to look out for each other.  Thane gave her a reassuring nod.  She couldn’t afford to worry about him anymore than any of her other specialists, so she put it out of her mind.  She blew her breath out slowly as she locked her helmet in place.  Garrus followed suit.

 

Twenty seconds out, the pilot bellowed a warning and started jinking the shuttle around hard to avoid the anti-aircraft fire.  The Kodiak’s shields had been heavily reinforced from the standard, but he was taking no chances.  Everyone stayed upright except Tali, who lost her grip on the support and fell back against Garrus.

 

Shepard watched the countdown clock.  Three.  Two.  One!  The pilot braked hard and opened the bay door.  Shepard and Grunt jumped out first, making the four meter drop easily.  Samara and Legion followed close behind, and the pilot veered away to make his second drop on top of the main building.

 

They still had the element of surprise with only the usual guards in place in the courtyard, but she knew it was only a matter of seconds before the mercs reacted and sent reinforcements boiling out the main doors.  She fully intended to take advantage of their predictability.  There were two sentry posts on top of the wall.  Legion brought up his massive sniper rifle and before the guard could bring his machine gun around to bear, had drilled him between the eyes.  Shepard and Grunt took off at a dead run for the entrance and the guards there.  Shepard dodged the bullets while Grunt shrugged them off.  As she ran up to the entrance, she tossed one of the guards against the wall with her biotics and followed up with a headshot.  Grunt blasted the second one with his shotgun.

 

“Cover me,” she ordered tersely as she bent to hack the locks.  Briefly, she wished for a tech specialist, but Legion was busy taking out guards on the walls and roofs.  It took her about three times longer than it would Tali, but she managed to hack open the door.

 

The Suns were marginally smarter than she’d hoped.  They’d massed in the entryway, waiting for her to open the doors.  As soon as they slid open, the mercs unloaded in a hailstorm of bullets that would have destroyed anything in their way.  She and Grunt took cover at the sides.  She plucked a flash bang grenade from her belt and waved it at the krogan before she threw it in.  He nodded and tossed in two incendiaries to follow up.  “Stay back, Grunt!” she yelled, hoping he listened to her orders.  They needed to draw the mercs into the courtyard where there was more room to maneuver.

 

Over the comm, she heard Garrus and Miranda both giving the go orders to their squads.  They were hitting the back of the base after a planned delay.   Of Thane and Kasumi, she heard nothing and didn’t expect to until they completed their mission.  They were going in through the roof and headed to the basement to blow the generators.  They’d been given several kilos of high powered explosives and a crash course in setting them.  They were relying on Thane’s eidetic memory to figure out how much to place and where after Jacob had instructed them on the basics.

 

The mercs in the hallway came out in a single, enormous mass of blue armor and weaponry.  She and Grunt started tearing into them from the sides while Samara used her biotics to great effect on the center-most mass, yanking them up in the air for Legion to pick off one by one.

 

For Shepard, the world narrowed down to split second snapshots:  biotic throw, fire, duck a punch, fire again, turn and elbow someone in the head to knock them down, then shoot at them to make sure they stayed down.  Her tech armor flared out quickly, knocking down the mercs surrounding her.  She was down to the ablative protection of her armor.

 

In spite of the danger, she was glorying in the moment.  Everything was moving in slow motion for her.  She knew where her enemies would be.  Every punch, every shot, every throw went exactly where she wanted it.  The Suns were still massed together, and she could feel the uncertainty start to move through them.  Between her and Grunt, they were taking mercs down with frightening speed.  She heard a couple shouts of “Geth!  They’ve got geth with them!” and grinned fiercely.  Yeah, that would tend to scare anyone.  Having your squadmate suddenly yanked in the air, only to fall dead at your feet seconds later was unnerving as well.

 

She could tell the moment that Garrus and Miranda hit the back of the compound.  A couple of heads turned toward the back, and a handful of mercs fell back through the hallway, shooting to cover their retreat.  She ordered Legion to take them out before they could get away and harass the rest of her squad.  Grunt’s shotgun whoomped continuously now that the mercs had been thinned enough that hand to hand wasn’t as much fun for the young krogan.

 

Shepard mixed biotics and weapons freely, throwing back the mercs and firing until they dropped.  She tossed one hard against the side wall near Grunt, and he put his shotgun against the human’s chest and pulled the trigger.  She looked around for the next threat and was surprised to see nothing left standing besides her squad.  She scanned the courtyard and what she could see of the hallway, but it was clear.

 

Her amps were burning and her SMG was hot even through her gloves.  She quickly scooped up some spare clips and tucked them in her belt.  Listening to the comm, she heard Miranda’s squad moving into the area tagged as a warehouse.  It sounded like they were encountering some resistance, but nothing more than expected.  Garrus had a smaller team consisting of Tali and Jack.  Even now, she couldn’t put Jack and Miranda on the same team.   Garrus was working his way through the base.  The plan was that between Shepard and Miranda, they would draw off most of the security forces, leaving Garrus’ squad an easier time locating the command center.

 

Suddenly she hear Garrus yell for backup.  “Tali’s down,” she heard.  “Jack, wait!  No!”  Through the comm, she heard Jack’s incoherent scream of rage.  Shepard immediately started sprinting down the hallway with Grunt close behind.  She was depending on her armor to protect her if she ran into any unexpected mercs as she tore deeper into the building.  “Garrus, talk to me!”

 

“Shepard, Tali’s down, suit puncture, not critical.  Jack ran off to draw them off.  She headed west into the building. I’ve lost contact with her,” he said quickly.

 

“Are you in a defensible location?”

 

“For the moment.  I could use some backup.  I’ve got heat signatures twenty meters away and closing fast.”

 

“Hold on, Garrus.  We’re on our way!”

 

* * *

  

For Thane and Kasumi, their first order of business was destroying the communication dishes on the roof.  Legion had already taken out most of the guards.  Thane had his Viper sniper rifle out as they landed on the roof and easily took down the two remaining guards.  He swapped to his Tempest to cover Kasumi as she disconnected the dishes.

 

After that, navigating down through the upper floors was easy enough.  The upper floors were spacious and sparsely occupied, especially now that Shepard’s combat squads were causing mayhem and havoc at the gates.  They each had their comms turned down as low as possible that would still allow them to hear what was going on, but outgoing communication would have to be triggered manually.  Thane took point at first, navigating through the back corridors and vents that he had memorized from EDI’s scans and the Illusive Man’s communiques.

 

They reached the back section of the compound with the stairs to the basement levels.  The door was secured, but Kasumi made quick work of the lock.  Now she took lead, using her tactical cloak to scout ahead and let Thane know when it was clear.  These basement levels were very different from up above.  They were well lit, wide and sterile – not good hiding places for those used to working in shadows.  Fortunately, they were as sparsely occupied as the rooms upstairs.

 

They moved quickly down the staircase to the third sublevel.  From there, they needed to navigate to the generator room.  Emerging from the stairwell, this level was much grimier than the two above.  It was obviously the home of the power systems.  No matter what the energy source, systems still needed lubrication, and that always seemed to attract dust and grease that never completely cleaned up.  Apparently, the people responsible for maintaining these systems didn’t care much about cleanliness, because every surface was coated in grime.  Various workbenches were placed throughout the large room.  In the back, a glassed off wall showed the generators humming along but kept the noise out of the main work room.  After Kasumi looped the cameras, Thane killed some of the lights, plunging the room into a mottled darkness.

 

“Hey, what happened to the lights?”  A man in greasy coveralls stepped out of the generator room, letting a brief burst of noise into the main room.  Thane faded into the darkness to work his way toward the mechanic.  It was only a matter of seconds before Thane was behind him.  He checked the man’s shoulder and immediately snapped his neck.  He felt no remorse for the action.  Shepard had decreed that there would be no prisoners.  Everyone here was an enemy, whether they carried a gun or not.  

 

Kasumi decloaked next to him and opened the bag of explosive she’d been carrying.  Thane looked through the glass wall and tried his best to calculate the mass that would be needed to put each generator out of service, then portioned all the putty explosive out into four equal amounts.  He gave two to Kasumi and kept two for himself.  Just as they prepared to enter the generator room, the mechanic’s radio sparked to life.  “Jones, you there?  Cannes wanted me to do a radio check of all departments.  You need to go into lockdown right the fuck now.  Mercs are storming the place.”  There was a pause while Thane and Kasumi looked at each other.  Neither could even pretend to answer in the dead mechanic’s place.  “Jones?  Answer me.  If you don’t answer me, I’m gonna send a squad down there.  Jones?”

 

Thane stood with his explosives.  “We have to move quickly.”  Kasumi nodded and opened the generator room door.  The four big machines generated a wall of sound that assaulted their ears.  Kasumi gracefully scaled the top of the monstrous machine at the far right end and started looking for a place to set the explosive.  Thane went left and behind, seeking a place that looked both vulnerable and hidden.  They repeated the process on the other two generators and headed back into the main room.

 

The radio was still yelling.  “Jones!  Pick up.  You’d better be dead or you’re in a heap of trouble!”  Thane ran lightly to the door and glanced through the narrow glass.  He grimaced and looked for something to jam the door.  “They’re coming!” he yelled to Kasumi.  She reached in a pocket and threw him a small thermal patch.  These he was familiar with.  They were fairly common amongst some of the criminal element as a way to deter pursuit.  He slapped it against the door frame and activated it.  It immediately sizzled red and melted a hand-sized patch of the door and frame together, preventing the door from sliding open.  The guards couldn’t get in, but now he and Kasumi were trapped, and the guards knew someone was inside.

 

They stepped back from the door, anticipating a hail of gunfire from the guards bent on destroying the door.  Thane fell back into his memories, searching for a way out as Kasumi scanned the room.  “Nothing,” he grated out.

 

Kasumi leapt lightly onto a workbench and poked the ceiling.  The tile lifted easily out of its frame.  “Thane, up here.”  He jumped up next to her and studied the drop frame ceiling.  It would hold Kasumi’s weight, but he was dubious about its capability to hold his.  Still, they were out of options.  He boosted her up into the ceiling then hoisted himself up.  The aluminum frames creaked alarmingly under his weight as Kasumi moved the tile back into place.  Not a moment too soon, either, as the door gave way.  Thane stayed still, trying not to stress the frames any more than he had to while Kasumi crept carefully from frame to frame until she found an air vent that let her look down into the room.  Using hand gestures, she indicated seven guards, all armored.  One stayed back by the door while the others fanned out.

 

“Goddamnit, they got Jones.”  “They’re still in here somewhere,” another voice answered.  “Find them.”

 

Kasumi had a good vantage point and kept Thane apprised of where they were using hand gestures.  She indicated that four of them were directly underneath him.  He nodded and crashed through the ceiling tile.  Surprise made them slow, and all four were dead in seconds without a single shot fired.  Two more were on the opposite side of the room, and he dived for cover, instinctively seeking the most shadowed part of the room.  He crawled along the floor until he was several meters from his original point, then peered out from behind a workbench.  They had lost track of him, making it easy for him to sight and take them down with his Tempest.  The guard by the door collapsed as Kasumi decloaked behind him.  “Let’s go!” she urged as she stepped past the shattered remains of the door.

 

* * *

 

 Shepard and her squad surprised the group of Suns that were trying to overrun Garrus’ position.  She and Grunt smashed into them, sending at least half toppling to the ground.  It was chaos for a couple of minutes as Shepard’s squad swirled with the mercs, engaged in vicious close quarters fighting.  Neither Legion nor Garrus could help; Shepard and Grunt were too closely engaged with the enemy for them to risk firing.  Samara yanked the mercs on the outside edge away with a biotic pull and finished them off with her assault rifle.

 

It was a couple more minutes before the mercs were taken care of, and Shepard could turn her attention to Tali and Garrus.  “Tali?  How are you?”

 

“I’m fine, Shepard.  A round punctured my suit, but it’s not serious.  I’ve already sealed it.”

 

Shepard looked at her skeptically.   “Can you move?”

 

Tali nodded and climbed laboriously to her feet.  “As long as I don’t have to run very far, I’m good.”

 

Shepard checked her gun and asked Garrus, “Which way did Jack go?”

 

He hooked a talon toward the left.  “Down that corridor.  Drew them off to keep them away from Tali and me.”

 

Shepard was already jogging down the hallway.  “Garrus, stay with Tali.  Everyone else with me.  Miranda, status?”

 

It was a few seconds before the Cerberus operative responded.  “We’ve cleared the warehouse, Shepard.  We found Dr. Mackey, but he’s unconscious with a bad head wound.  Mordin’s started looking through the data, but we could use Tali’s assistance.”

 

“Coordinate with Garrus,” Shepard said, breathing heavily as she ran down the corridor.  It was easy to follow Jack – all they had to do was follow the trail of destroyed furnishings and occasional dropped merc.  She thumbed her comm again.  “Thane, Kasumi, can you give me your status?”  It was nearing the upper end of the time frame they’d allotted for their portion of the mission, but Shepard wasn’t worried.  Yet.

 

She skidded around a corner and saw a set of double doors ahead.  She pounded down the hallway, Grunt close on her heels.  She crashed through the doors and pulled up so short that Grunt smacked into her, sending her windmilling forward several steps.  

A heavy set human male with dark hair and heavy stubble held Jack close with a pistol against her head.  Surrounding them were at least another dozen Suns, all with guns out and pointed at Shepard and Grunt.  Jack looked exhausted and there was an incipient bruise forming on the side of her head, probably from being pistol whipped, Shepard guessed.  Jack gave her an apologetic shrug.  “Sorry, Shepard.  Too many of them.”

 

“Drop your weapons!” the heavy set man ordered.  Shepard hesitated.  Only she and Grunt were exposed, and both were heavily armored, but Jack wasn’t.  She looked like she’d exhausted her biotic powers, and without them, she was in danger from gunfire.  Hopefully the Suns wouldn’t realize Samara and Legion were close behind her, but how to extricate Jack?

 

“I said drop ‘em!”  He pointed his weapon downward and fired.

 

“God damn mother fucking piss bucket!” Jack howled and collapsed, only his grip holding her off the floor.  He’d shot her in the leg.  Jack’s biotics flared uselessly.  She was in too much pain to control the last dregs of her energy as it dissipated.  

 

“All right, all right!”  Shepard dropped her Locust in front of her and held her hands up placatingly.  She motioned Grunt to drop his shotgun, and he did so with a disgusted snort.  “Pistol, too!” he ordered.  Shepard fumed as she dropped her other gun on the ground.  Toggling her suit speakers off, she spoke into the comm.  “Thane, Kasumi, are you clear?  I need you to blow the bombs!  Please tell me you’re clear.”

 

“Shepard, eh?” the leader drawled.  “ _The_ Shepard?  Hot damn.  Today just might be our lucky day, boys.  I know a couple contracts out there that would pay a lot of money for you.  Some of ‘em don’t even specify that you have to be alive.”

 

“Let her go and we’ll talk,” Shepard offered.  Now she was starting to worry.  Where was her stealth team?

 

He dropped Jack’s arm and let her collapse to the floor.  She rolled into a ball and grabbed her leg.  The rest of the Suns ignored her.  

 

“Look, I’m just here on a job,” Shepard told him.  “Tell you what, we give up.  You beat us.  Great job.  Let me take my team, and we’ll clear out.  No amount of money is worth taking this place.  Then you’ll get to brag about how you beat Commander fucking Shepard.”  She had no intention of actually keeping her word, but he didn’t have to know that.

 

The Suns’ leader laughed mockingly.  “I don’t think so.  I think we’ll keep you, get the money, and still brag about how I sold Shepard to the highest bidder.  Hear the batarians have a really fat price on your head.”

 

Over her comm, she heard Garrus’ voice.  “Keep ‘em talking, Shepard.  We’re almost there.”

 

Out loud, she said, “You really should consider taking me up on my offer.  It’s the best one you’re gonna get.”

 

He laughed again, obviously enjoying his position of power.  “How do you figure that?  I got your little girl here.  You obviously don’t want me to drill a hole in her head.”  He brought his gun up and aimed it at her head.  “Walk over here, and I’ll consider letting her go.  She looks like trouble, anyway.”

 

Shepard was getting angry and worried both.  Not a good combination.  “Thane?  Kasumi?  Garrus?  Someone give me something!  I need those bombs now!”

 

She felt a flood of relief when she heard Thane’s rough voice over the comm.  “Detonation in three...two...one...”

 

* * *

 

 Thane and Kasumi only made it up one floor before they had to sidetrack to avoid another group of guards going into the generator room.  They slipped into the brightly lit hallway and into the first room they could find.  It was the janitor’s closet.  

 

“Well, Sere Krios, any ideas?” Kasumi asked in as cheery a voice as she could manage.  They both held their breath as a set of footsteps pounded by outside.  

 

Thane hrmmed absently as he shook his head.  “EDI’s scan’s were not detailed at this sublevel.  We must make it to the ground floor before I can find us a reliable path.”  Neither of them wanted to chance the stairwell unless there was no other choice.  With absolutely no cover and enemies likely to come at them from above, it was a death trap.

 

Kasumi pulled a small object out of a pocket.  “I have a torch, but no guarantees it’ll cut through the roof before the fuel runs out.”

 

Thane’s eyelids blinked rapidly as he reviewed the scans from EDI.  “It’s possible there’s an access hatch three doors down.  That would put us into the ceiling and be the thinnest spot between floors.”  It also put them closer to the rigged generators, but neither one felt it worth mentioning.

 

Kasumi peeked out the door and cloaked.  “It’s clear,” she whispered and flitted down the hallway.  She went three doors down and opened the door.  “I see it.”

 

“Wait!”  Thane took a few more steps around the corner and spotted just what he wanted:  the air return system for the sub-basement.  “Come,” he gestured urgently.  He boosted Kasumi up and she undid the latches.  Thane jumped and lifted himself up behind her, pulling the vent cover closed and sealing it behind them to leave no trace.  He pointed and Kasumi started crawling forward.  They had to stop frequently when they heard footsteps below them.  They had just made it to the ninety degree bend that would take them up a floor when they heard Shepard’s urgent call for them over the comm.  Kasumi looked back at Thane and he shook his head.  There were guards nearby.  In addition, they were still inside the blast radius.

 

Moving as quickly as they dared, they scaled the distance between floors, listening to the comms.  They both jumped when Jack was shot and she screamed over the comm.  Thane felt a wash of cold go over him at the unknown man’s threat to turn his siha over to the batarians.  She needed him, and he was stuck several floors away.  Not even Garrus was by her side.   _Do not take her!_ he implored Kalahira. _I would go in her place,_ he swore.

 

When Shepard made her second plea for Thane and Kasumi to set off the bombs, he knew Kalahira had listened.  Kasumi pulled her hood back and turned to look at him.  Even in the low light, he could see the thief’s slight nod.  They each pulled on their breathers.  Jacob had warned them that if they were still in the blast radius when it went off, the breathers might, just maybe, protect their lungs from the pressure wave.  Kasumi held out her hand and Thane gripped it tightly.  He triggered his comm and spoke.  “Detonation in three...two...one...” and pressed the trigger.

 

* * *

  

The room rocked violently, but Shepard and Grunt were prepared.  The Suns weren’t, and several of them fell to the ground.  Shepard’s hand was on her combat knife instantly, and she sent in flying directly into the leader’s throat.  “Grunt, cover Jack!” she ordered.  The youth yelled and charged into the fray.  He straddled Jack’s prone form, laying into everyone about him he could reach.  As Shepard snatched her Locust from the floor, she felt as much as heard sniper fire from both Legion and Garrus over her shoulder.  Trusting both of them not to hit her, she stayed in place and fired at the mercs, picking off the ones still lying on the floor.  Samara ran past her and grabbed Jack’s arm, pulling her backward while projecting a small protective barrier.  Once Jack was safely out of the way, Grunt laughed and went to town.  He picked up a salarian and started using him as a club on another Sun.

 

Working tightly as a team, it wasn’t long before every merc in the room was down.  Shepard was breathing heavily as she turned to survey her people.  “Anyone hurt?” she demanded.  

 

“Yeah, me, goddamnit!” Jack yelled.

  
“I know that, Jack.  Anyone else?” Shepard snapped.  She relaxed marginally when everyone else replied in the negative.  Samara was already applying medi gel and a field dressing to Jack’s leg, although it would take Chakwas and the Normandy’s Med Bay to completely repair the damage.  “Thane?  Kasumi?  Report.  Miranda, any changes?”

 

Miranda reported back first.  “Negative, Shepard.  All clear here.  No changes.  Mordin has located the Cerberus data, and we’ve found the prototype weapons.”

 

Shepard knelt by Jack’s side.  “Thank you, Jack.”

 

“For what?” the younger woman snarled.  “Letting those assholes get the drop on me?  That was embarrassing.”

 

“No,” Shepard said with a shake of her head.  “For protecting Tali the way you did.  I’m proud of you, Jack.”  She squeezed the young woman’s shoulder tightly, pretending not to notice the way Jack blinked and looked away.  She took a quick head count.  All accounted for except her stealth team.  “Thane, Kasumi, report!”  It had been over five minutes since they had blown the explosives, and a knot of worry was starting to form in her stomach.  “Legion, stay here with Tali and Jack.  Protect them, see if you can escort them to Miranda’s position.  Everyone else with me.”

 

Garrus fell in on her right as Grunt and Samara followed on her left.  She brought up her omni tool to look for Thane and Kasumi’s position, but nothing was showing.  “Garrus?”  

 

He caught on to her worry immediately.  “They’re probably fine, Shepard.  The explosion may have compromised their comms.”  She nodded brusquely, hoping against hope that was all it was.  They headed downstairs, but at the second sub level, they had to stop.  The walls of the staircase had fallen in.

 

“Damn,” Garrus muttered.  “How much did they use?”

 

“Looks like all of it,” Samara answered.  They all retreated back to the first sub level and down the hallway.  With the power gone, they were down to their portable lights and the few emergency lights that still clung to the walls.  The dust was choking thick, causing Grunt and Samara to pull on their breathers.  Garrus was scanning for life signs with his omni tool.  He and Shepard shared an uneasy look when they walked over a fallen Suns merc.  Garrus flipped him over.  It looked like he died in the explosion.  

 

“I hear something,” Garrus said suddenly and started running forward, Shepard hot on his heels.  They found Kasumi struggling to pull herself out of a section of venting that had collapsed onto the floor.  She was coughing through her breather and looked up in surprise as their lights pierced the gloom.  

 

“Kasumi!  Are you okay?  Where’s Thane?” Shepard cried out as she skidded to a stop at the thief’s side.

 

Kasumi shook her head and pointed at her ear and shrugged.  “Thane?” Shepard yelled again.  Kasumi frowned and turned around.  “He was right behind me,” she yelled, not realizing how loudly she was speaking.

 

Shepard pointed her light where Kasumi indicated, and felt her breath catch in her throat.  Sections of wall and ceiling both had collapsed onto the floor just behind the petite thief.  “Oh my god, Thane,” she breathed, terrified at what they would find.  
  
Grunt stomped past her and started shifting massive pieces of concrete to the side.  Garrus helped pry a girder up.  The wall behind them groaned alarmingly, and Shepard rushed to help them clear the rubble.  

 

“There, I see him,” Samara cried out as she moved past Kasumi to latch onto a leather-covered arm.  Shepard nearly cried in relief when she saw Thane’s hand grab onto Samara’s arm.  

 

Carefully and working together, they lifted the concrete pieces enough to allow Samara to pull Thane free.  Shepard rested her hands on his shoulders and peered at him as closely as she could in the gloom.  He seemed dazed but physically unharmed.  “Let’s get out of here,” she ordered.  She and Samara supported Thane under each arm while Grunt carried Kasumi.  Garrus led the way back through the rubble and dark until they made it to the first floor.  

  
She sent Garrus and Grunt to do another sweep while she stayed to check out her team.  She wanted to rage at them both for setting off the explosives when they obviously hadn’t been clear, but she bit her tongue.  Yelling would do no good right now.  She unlatched her helmet, smelling for the first time the acrid scent of dust, blood and gunfire that permeated the building.

 

“Thane?” she asked, putting her gloved hand gently against his face.  “Are you alright?”

 

He blinked rapidly and looked to the side.  “ _The walls collapse inward, missing me by inches.  The asari is not so lucky.  One arm reaching forward is all that remains of my quarry_.”

 

She frowned in confusion.  “Thane?” she tried again.

 

“ _The swells are large today.  We almost don’t go out, but Kolyat has been looking forward to this for weeks.  Up and down, over and over.  None of my training has ever prepared me for this, and the seasickness is overwhelming.  Irikah finds it amusing._ ”  

 

 _Crap_ , she thought and looked over at Kasumi.  “What happened?” she asked.

 

The thief either read lips or had regained some of her hearing, but when she responded, she was still talking too loud.  “We heard you call for us to set them off.  We hoped we were far enough away.”

 

“You hoped?” Shepard yelled.  “Hope is not an acceptable tactic in battle!  How much did you use, anyway?”

 

“All of it.”

 

“All?” Shepard squeaked. “Kasumi, Jacob gave you double what he thought you’d need!”

 

“ _Double down, the batarian says.  Easy enough.  Even if I lose, and I won’t, I can collect the pot after I kill him._ ”

 

“Thane!”  She reached out to shake his shoulders, stopping at the last minute.  If he had a concussion or some sort of head injury, she didn’t want to make it worse.  She wished the Normandy was in radio range so she could ask Dr. Chakwas for advice.  As it was, she had to settle for her omni tool scan that simply told her his vitals were in the normal range.

 

Garrus and Grunt returned, and between them, they hoisted Thane and Kasumi to their feet and headed out to join Miranda’s squad.  Shepard made herself ignore Thane’s random outbursts as they walked.

 

When they made it to the warehouse, she found that Legion had brought Tali and Jack safely along and was currently helping Zaeed search the database for information on Vido.  Tali had rigged up a temporary power supply to help, and it made Shepard smile briefly to see the quarian and geth working together.

 

“ _Lights flicker, making it easy to slip behind her undetected.  She thinks she’s alone, pining for a lost lover.  Her hand moves beneath her clothes.  She will die unfulfilled._ ”

 

She and Samara glanced at each other and guided Thane to sit next to the unconscious human and Jack.  “Watch over him, Jack.  Please,” she asked.  Jack nodded, happy to be given something to do.  Grunt set Kasumi down carefully next to Thane.  Eager to find something she could manage instead of worry about Thane, Shepard turned to Miranda.  “Report.”

 

“As far as we can tell, most of the Suns are dead.  We saw two aircars leaving, and Zaeed took down one, but the other got away.  Dr. Mackey is in desperate need of medical attention.  No injuries on my squad,” she finished as she looked over the rest of the team, cataloging the various injuries.

 

“Okay,” Shepard breathed out in a long sigh.  “What’s left?  We’ve got what we came for.”

 

Miranda nodded.  “The only thing is to leave this place a burning pile of wreckage.”

 

That brought a wry smile to Shepard’s face.  “Finally, something fun.”

 

It was another hour before they had the place rigged to blow.  Shepard watched everyone get in the shuttle, the last to step into it.  As soon as the pilot achieved a safe distance, she gave the order to blow the Suns’ base, watching with satisfaction on the viewscreen.  Underneath, however, a frisson of uncertainty lurked.  She glanced around the shuttle.  Jack - gunshot wound.  Kasumi and Thane - an unknown amount of damage from the explosion.  At least Thane had stopped falling into memories and was looking around at his surroundings now.  He caught her look and nodded gravely.  If this was how they fared against mercs, how would they do against the Collectors?

 

The pilot signaled that she had a priority message from the Normandy and asked her to come into the cockpit.   _What now,_ she wondered as she maneuvered into the cramped space.  

 

“Shepard?”

 

“What’s up, Joker?”  Her pilot’s normally light-hearted and acerbic tone was completely missing.  He sounded...beaten.

 

“Ah, we’ve got a problem, Commander.”

  
  
“Joker?”  A warning tone now.  She didn’t tolerate people who beat around the bush.

 

“The Collectors.  They found us.  There was a signal hidden in the IFF that led them to us.  They boarded the ship and...and...”

 

“And what, Joker?” her voice whipcord sharp.

 

“They took them, Commander!”

 

“Who?”

  
  
“Everyone!  They took everyone, Shepard!”  His voice broke into a sob on the last syllable.

 

She felt the blood drain from her face.  Beside her, the pilot looked like he was in shock.  Her entire crew gone?

 

It wasn’t until she was walking through the empty mess hall and CIC that it hit home.  Everyone was gone.  The mess was empty.  Bullet holes riddled the glass of Med Bay.  There were blood stains by the lift.  Her footsteps echoed through the empty CIC where just hours before it had pulsed with noise, life, and conversation.

 

Everyone was gone.

 

Legion was right.  Losing your family was a crippling loss of data.

 

* * *

 

A/N: Thank you to Orchidellia and ff dot net, my beta reader!  She helped me make a painful decision about some of the narrative, but I think ultimately, it made the story much better.  

 


	30. Be Careful What You Wish For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard deals with the fallout of the previous mission.

Shepard stepped into the Med Bay.  Since there was nothing she could do about her missing crew, she had taken the time to shower and change after their mission, although she was so keyed up that she couldn’t relax.  It seemed wrong to see Miranda taking over medical duties and treating Jack’s leg wound instead of Dr. Chakwas.  “How’s she doing?”

 

Miranda answered without looking up.  “The prognosis is good.  The round actually managed to miss all the leg bones, and the medi gel is repairing the soft tissues.  I wouldn’t recommend a marathon for the next two days, but otherwise, she should be fine within twenty four hours.”

 

Shepard clasped the tattooed woman’s shoulder tightly.  “Glad to hear it.  I wouldn’t want to go into battle against the Collectors without one of my frontline forces of destruction,” she said with a tight smile.

 

“Just let me at ‘em.  I’m still pissed off at those fucking goons,” Jack fumed.

 

“Gladly.  It’s going to be no-holds-barred, kill everything in sight.  What about Kasumi and Thane?”

 

The expression on Miranda’s face told half the story.  “Kasumi came in for a quick check.  Some hearing loss that may not recover for a few days.  Thane Krios refused to come in.”

 

Shepard chewed on the inside of her cheek.  “Anyone else injured?”

 

Miranda shook her head.  “Nothing more than the usual superficial damage.”

 

“Alright.  Thanks, Miranda.”  Shepard turned to head out and heard Jack growl, “Careful, cheerleader.”  The epithet didn’t seem nearly as laced with venom anymore.  More like a nickname than anything else.

 

Miranda answered tartly, “If I brought Shepard back from the dead, I think I can deal with a gunshot wound, Jack.”

 

Shepard smiled though neither woman could see her.  Maybe there was hope for those two after all.  Outside the Med Bay, she stopped and took in the nearly empty crew mess.  Zaeed was in the galley, putting together lunch for those remaining.  Grunt was assisting, although it looked like he was simply opening packages and making his own meal.  They were exchanging war stories - one of things he’d seen, the other of things taught him by the tank - and comparing notes.  It was a poignant reminder that no matter what happened, life continued.  Joker was making all speed to the nearest mass relay, and from there, they would relay hop to Omega-4.  They were down to less than a day from the conclusion of their mission, one way or another.  Shepard hoped against hope that her crew were still alive.  On Horizon, the Collectors had put the colonists in some sort of stasis pods, which seemed to indicate they wanted them alive.  She’d watched EDI’s footage of the attacks and seen the same stasis pods.

 

Jacob was busy in the armory, repairing and cleaning weapons and armor.  Mordin was fine tuning his seeker swarm deterrents.  Garrus couldn’t be pried away from his Thanix cannon for anything.  The rest of her specialists were coping in their own ways.  She’d left the most difficult for last.

 

Shepard stood outside Life Support, hand hovering over the door chime.  In a way, she wanted nothing more than to barge in there and yell, but the little logical voice in her brain was pointing out that was hardly likely to generate any positive results.  She couldn’t just walk away, either.  She had to know what he was thinking and be sure that he was ready for their final mission.  The image of Thane being pulled out of the rubble when she was terrified he had been killed still haunted her thoughts.  His incoherent ramblings disturbed her even more.

 

She nearly turned around.  Obviously, she wasn’t calm enough for this conversation yet, but they were out of time.  Before she could debate it further, she pushed the door chime, watching in vague surprise as her hand trembled slightly.  Thane opened the door, surprising her further when she saw him wearing a pair of loose cotton pants and a simple loose shirt.  Then she recalled seeing his leathers in the armory when she stopped by.  She hadn’t realized at the time that Thane had taken enough damage that his leathers needed repairing.  It was one more thing to add to the list of things that bothered her today.

 

He stood there, calm and unassuming as ever.  “Shepard, please come in.”  He must have sensed this was a visit born of duty.

 

“Thane,” she acknowledged as she brushed past him.  She refused to sit, instead pacing back and forth in the small space in front of his weapon display.  He also remained standing, hands clasped behind his back.

 

Thane’s calm composure was irritating her all the more.  Why wasn’t he upset?  He nearly died today!  She stopped abruptly to stare at him.  “Why, Thane?”

 

He knew exactly what she meant.  “You needed something to turn the situation in your favor.”

 

“I didn’t need to risk two members of my squad to save one!” she snarled.  “Garrus was on his way.  I know you were listening to the comms, so why didn’t you wait?  If you and Kasumi weren’t in the clear, you had no business triggering those bombs!”

 

Thane let her anger slide past him.  “We hoped we were far enough away to avoid harm.”

 

“Hope!” she exclaimed and turn away to pace again.  “Did you not hear what I told Kasumi?  You plan.  You train.  You might even take advantage of a bit of luck if it comes your way.  You don’t _hope_!” she yelled.

 

“It worked out…” he started.

 

“No, it didn’t!” she cut him off.  “Did you see how much concrete we pulled off of you?  Kasumi can’t hear properly.”  She put her hand on his jaw and turned his head to look at the side of his face.  “I saw blood here,” she said, tracing her finger in a line down his neck under his ear.  “What about you?”

 

“I can hear you just fine, Shepard,” he replied drily.

 

So maybe she had been yelling a lot since walking in here.  “What else?  You refused to report to Med Bay.  Against my direct orders, might I remind you.  And what’s up with all the memories you were spouting?”

 

Now he looked embarrassed and pulled his head out of her grip.  “The result of a concussion.  I’m better now.”

 

“Yeah?” she challenged.  “How do I know?  Am I supposed to just take your word for it?”

 

Thane stared at her unmoved by her words.  “Yes,” he answered calmly.

 

She blinked and stepped backward in surprise.  Like hell she’d let him be his own doctor.  “Go see Miranda,” she ordered.

 

“No.”

 

“What?”  There was a dangerous undertone in her voice.  How dare he refuse her orders?  First he acted rashly in the Sun’s base, and now he was being insubordinate.  Even after resigning from the Alliance, she couldn’t stop her inborn reactions that were informed by a lifetime of military service, and for someone to directly refuse her orders threw her whole world view into chaos.

 

He straightened up again and faced her.  When he spoke, it was as he were simply stating facts.  “There is nothing that will prevent me from going with you.  I can shoot and fight perfectly well.”  Shepard looked unconvinced, forcing him to continue.  There was an odd mix of irritation, dignity and desperation in his voice.  “I will not be left behind while you face potential death.  You knew the score when you recruited me.  It matters not if I die on this mission.”

 

“It matters to me!” she yelled loudly and clenched her fists together.

 

Finally his calm was slipping away.  Thane’s expression tipped into anger now.  “You will not leave me behind to protect me.  Would you ever leave Garrus behind?  No.  Will you leave Jack behind, even though she was shot?  No.  Give me the same respect.  I am going with you, so it matters not what my physical condition is.”

 

“Do you have a death wish?”

 

He shook his head.  “Not at all.”

 

“Then why did you refuse a lung transplant?”  She knew it was a dirty blow when she said it, but it had been weighing on her mind for days now, and she couldn’t figure out how to bring it up.  But with the end so near, she had to know.

 

He looked startled and took a step backward, uncharacteristically bumping into the wall behind him.  “How did you know?”

 

“The Shadow Broker.  She has dossiers on everyone.  Hell of a lot more detailed than I got from Cerberus, I might add.”  She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.

 

Now it was Thane’s turn to walk away.  He went to the table and placed both hands on its surface.  “If I tell you, it will only increase your anger.”

 

She snorted.   “You think I care about that right now?  Talk.”

 

Without looking up, he explained.  “The medical technology exists to transfer a set of healthy lungs into that of a Kepral’s Syndrome sufferer.  However, as is always the case, technology far outstrips culture and religion.  When I die, Kalahira will judge me based on my actions in this life.  I have atoned for my sins, but I do not know if I will be judged worthy at the end.  If I take someone else’s living tissue into my own body, I become responsible for their soul as well as mine.  I will not risk the salvation of their soul when mine is already so burdened.”

 

Silence hung heavy between them as Shepard digested what he said.  He refused to look up at her.  Religion was still a touchy subject between them, and now he was telling her that because of some ancient, arcane superstitions he refused to seek lifesaving treatment.  She understood intellectually how people would be concerned with their immortal souls, but to her, the salvation of the living was of utmost importance.

 

She wheeled and slammed her palm against the wall.  “God damn your religion!”  He looked up and she saw the stirrings of anger in his expression.  Before he could speak, she cut him off.  “I call bullshit.  You have devoted the last years of your life to atoning for your revenge.  Revenge that was more than justified.  I’ve seen you go out of your way, risk your own death, to save innocent lives, and I know it happened on more than one instance.  If your goddess can’t see that, she’s an idiot.  A malicious one.”

 

In two steps, Thane was in her face.  His words snapped out, born of his own desperation and anger.  “Enough, Shepard!  You think I have not heard these arguments before?  Do you think I have not spent hours in meditation contemplating the merits of accepting a lung transplant if it would allow me to continue to live, especially now that I have you and Kolyat?”

 

That stopped her cold.  She hadn’t actually thought of that.  Thane took advantage of her silence.  “There is nothing I want more than to live my life at your side, siha.  For decades instead of months.  I want to grow old with you, to know the joy of experiencing each day at your side without the specter of death hanging over each of us.  I pray for that every day.  And I have taken steps to reach that future.  I talked with Mordin, and he has developed a new treatment for me.”  He saw the hope blooming in her eyes and shook his head.  “It is a treatment, siha, not a cure.”

 

“How long?” she asked urgently.

 

“Another year.  Maybe two.  He is still refining the protocol.”

 

There were so many emotions swirling inside her that she had trouble separating them.  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

 

A hint of a smile touched his lips as he stroked the side of her face.  “We were not certain it was effective until recently.”

 

“Don’t you trust me?  Why didn’t you tell me?  Let me hope and celebrate with you.”

 

Thane bowed his head.  “I apologize, siha.  I did not want to add to your burdens by letting you hope when it might not have been effective.  I promise to do better,” he said as he looked back at her, waiting to see her reaction.  Her eyes were narrowed, giving nothing away.

 

“Prove it.  You want to spend years with me, then show me.”

 

He leaned in and brushed his lips over hers, offering an apology through his kiss.

 

She bit down sharply on his lip, causing him to draw back in surprise.  She grabbed the back of his head and pulled him in for a bruising kiss.  When he was slow to respond, she grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pushed him back against the wall, and then kissed him again, bruising, hard and full of desperation.

 

His arms came up to circle her back, caressing down her spine, seeking to gentle the anger inside her.

 

She pulled back and stared intently into his eyes.  “Why are you holding back?”

 

“I don’t want to hurt you.  I’m stronger than you.  I can’t afford to forget myself and lose control, especially now.”

 

She hissed at him, “Don’t you dare!  Don’t you dare try to treat me as some fragile thing.  I killed Saren when he was a Reaper abomination.  I killed a yahg.  I can handle you, Thane Krios!”  She put her hands on his shoulders and shoved him back against the wall.  

 

With lightning reflexes, he spun her around so she was the one pinned against the wall.  Consciously or not, she was triggering his instinctive reactions to fight, and she didn’t have a clue what she was risking.  "What do you want, siha?" he asked, his voice pitched low and dangerous.

 

She stabbed her finger into his chest.  "What I want is for you to stop treating me like something precious and treat me like an equal.  I want to see the real you that's hiding under layers upon layers of control.  I want to see you fighting and clawing for every minute to stay alive.  I want to see you live, Thane!"

 

He fought down his instincts to throw her to the floor, to take her just as she was pushing for.  She had no idea how close he already was to losing control, no matter what it looked like.  She wasn’t the only one who had been scared today.  He had come face to face with his own death.  Only luck had decreed that he had ended up in a void in the rubble, and he never counted on luck.  It had been desperation that had driven his actions, the thought that someone might take his siha away.  The fact that he had also endangered Kasumi, even though she had agreed, weighed on his soul.  Guilt warred with relief and desire.  His woman was here in front of him, so very alive, fiery energy crackling in her gestures and words.  They were both alive, and he wanted nothing more than to pull her to him and prove it to each of them over and over.

 

How did she get under his skin this way?  She was pushing and tempting him to let go of the iron clad control that had been his entire life for decades.  Yes, she was strong, but she was still only human.  Still delicate.  Even with Irikah, he hadn't allowed himself to ever truly let go.  But Shepard just kept demanding.  Even now her lips were on his, punishingly hard.  Her hand gripped the back of his head, pulling him close as her other hand sought underneath his shirt.  He would try to meet her partway, to give her the wildness she so obviously sought while still keeping a rein over the basest part of himself.  Tongues met, lips kissed.  His own hand found and undid the fastenings on her jacket and closed over her breast in the way he had many times before.

 

Breathless, she brought her hands up between them and pushed him back.  "You're still holding back.  I'm in no mood for soft and loving right now, Thane.  If you aren't willing to meet me, then we'd both be better off if I go back to my cabin."

 

For a moment, they stared at each other.  She had thrown down the gauntlet, so to speak.  The question they were both wondering was if Thane was willing to pick it up.  He wanted her badly, and by the look of things, the feeling was mutual.  Her pupils were dilated wide, cheeks flushed and breathing rapid.  He had never given himself permission to let go sexually.  To him, Irikah was a goddess come to life.  How could he treat her with anything less than reverence?  He had tried to treat Shepard the same way, but she wasn't allowing it tonight.  Nothing had ever prepared him for how to deal with the elemental force in front of him.  

 

The moment passed.  Shepard sank in on herself and then turned toward the door.  Thane had a split second to make his decision.  There was really only one decision to be had.  The last of his walls crumbled.  He had a feeling he would regret this later, but that was for later.  Whether she realized it or not, he had claimed her as his with a surety that was bone deep.  Instincts that were eons old were bubbling to the surface, blocking out rational thought.  His woman was threatening to walk out on him, and he couldn't allow that.  

 

Just before she reached the door, he lunged forward and grabbed her wrist.  He yanked her forcefully back into his room and shoved her up against the wall.  His lips came crashing down on hers, plundering her mouth with his tongue.  "Just remember, you wanted this," he growled as he ripped her coat open.  

 

Dark energy rippled between them, and she threw him back across the narrow hallway.  "The question is, can you keep up?" she smirked wickedly.  

 

In an instant, he was back on her.  This time, he grabbed both wrists and pinned them over her head, effectively taking away her biotics.  "You talk too much," he growled and covered her mouth with his to quiet her.  He shoved his leg between hers, lifting her to her tiptoes and feeling that sweet heat between her legs.   With his free hand, he searched under her coat, growling in displeasure at the multiple layers of clothing.  Giving it up, he went after what he truly wanted.  He popped the fastenings of her pants so hard that he heard something fly off and hit the floor.  Ignoring it, he shoved her pants down aided by a shimmy on her part.  

 

She was constantly pulling at his hand holding hers to the wall.  He knew what she wanted, but she had forced the issue. For better or worse, he would do this his way.  He slid his fused middle fingers into her, finding her hot and slick already.  Even as she kissed him she tried to set the rhythm, but he simply held on, moving with her, denying her the friction she craved.  They fought for dominance, and as a result, neither gained the rhythm or satisfaction they wanted.  It didn’t matter to Thane.  He had other plans.

 

Still pinning her to the wall, he bent his head to nuzzle at her neck.  Just as he found the one spot that always made her relax and tilt her head away to give him access, he bit hard,  drawing a shriek and a futile, automatic attempt to free herself.  He rumbled in pleasure as he shoved his own light pants down and kicked them away.  Hooking his arm under her knee, he lined himself up and sheathed himself inside her.  She went rigid in his arm, eyes closed and mouth falling open in shock at the sudden intrusion.  He wasn’t so far gone that he couldn’t give her time to adjust, but while he did, he ravished her mouth.

 

When she began kissing him back, he knew that she was ready for more.  He withdrew, only to slam back inside.  He swallowed up her moans, giving no mercy.  She seemed to expect none.

 

He continued, slow, merciless, relentless, until she was writhing in his arms, begging for more.  He lost himself in the sensations, glorying in this feeling of release, of letting his body finally do what it had been demanding for months.  He felt it when she was nearing her edge and slammed into her even harder.   He watched in satisfaction as her eyes glazed over.  He wasn’t finished with her, though, not by a long shot.   
  
While she was basking in her afterglow, he carried her to the table and set her on it. The cold metal against her bare bottom stirred her back to life, but he ignored her feeble protests.  She had awakened a deep primal drive inside him.  Running his fingers through her hair as he loved to do, he locked it around his fist, pulling her head back and exposing her neck.  “Do you know how delicate human necks are?” he rumbled as he kissed the column of her neck below her ear.  “So few muscles for support.  Here...and here,” he said, marking each line with his free hand.  He wrapped his hand loosely around her throat.  Even now, he retained enough control to remember she was only human.  “I’m alien to you, a trained killer.  Why do you trust me so?”

 

She had to search her thoughts to pull together the right words.  “You swore to me.  Everything you are for as long as you could.”  She opened her eyes, they were bright and glittering with desire and love.  “You swore yourself t _o me_!” she hissed as he entered her again.  She laced her hands around his neck, deliberately stroking the sensitive velvet ribbing, knowing what it would do to him, to her.  His hand grabbed her hip and yanked her hard against him as he growled his desire openly, letting it rise into the range where she could hear it easily.  

 

The sounds of passion filled the tiny room instead of the normal discourses of politics, philosophy and religion.  She would have bruises tomorrow, but she didn’t care.  She would wear the marks of his teeth, and she was glad.  In turn, she was leaving her own marks on his skin.  This was life!  This raw, animalistic pursuit had no purpose other than to remind the celebrants that they were living, the present was all that existed, and that life was fleeting, pleasure even more so.  

 

Finally her assassin was giving in.  As much as she loved his searching questions and his delicate touches, this unforgiving, pounding passion was what she so desperately craved right now.  It left no room in her for doubt, fear, or worry.  There was only her glorious, green-skinned assassin who had captured her heart, and he had done it so subtly than she didn’t even know she had fallen.  When she died, she hoped it was as painless as falling in love with him.

 

She felt his movements grow jerky as he neared his completion.  She pulled his head close to hers and hissed in his ear.  “You’re mine, Thane Krios.  I claim you body and soul.”  

 

“Siha,” he groaned as he grabbed her and pulled her into a crushing embrace that she delighted in.  His breathing was both raspy and rapid, and he nictitated his inner eyelids frequently as he came back to himself.

 

They stayed like that a long while, him resting his forehead against hers, both of them with eyes closed until their breathing returned to normal.  At last, he opened his eyes and kissed her deeply.  “I am yours,” he agreed, his breath mingling with hers.  “And you are mine,” he proclaimed with that rumbling laugh of his, “and I’m not finished with you yet.  You should be careful what you wish for, siha,” he finished with a dark glint in his eyes.  He delighted in her astonished gasp as he picked her up and carried her to his cot, still hard inside her.  “You should have read Mordin’s information more carefully,” he admonished his human angel.  “I have a feeling you skipped over the part about drell endurance.”

 

He then proceeded to give her what she had asked for, an assassin unleashed who toyed with her body until she could no longer bear it, and then continued far past that point.  But he also gave her pleasure upon pleasure so that she forgave all, until finally his own endurance ran out far sooner than he would have liked. He tucked her between him and the wall on the narrow cot, asleep as soon as he allowed her.  He knew that in spite of their activities, the stress of the final mission would only allow her a few hours of sleep.  He hoped and prayed that he had given her the release she had been seeking when she entered his cabin.  He only knew that she was his salvation in this life, and before he sank into the restorative comfort of sleep, he offered up another prayer of thanks to Arashu.

 

* * *

 

 

A/N: Thank you to Orchidellia, my beta reader!

 


	31. Saying Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hours before reaching the Omega 4 Relay.

_To: Krios, Kolyat; hanar embassy, Citadel_

_From:  Shepard (Spectre); Normandy SR2 [comm D_ _⍬_ _14-_ _⍺⍴_ _-804]_

_Priority:  Alpha (Spectre/Council Business)_

_Security:  Alpha (Spectre/Council Business)_

 

_Kolyat,_

 

_Shepard has graciously allowed me to send this under her account so that it will reach you as soon as we reach the mass relay instead of waiting for open bandwidth in the comm buoys._

 

_By the time you read this, we will most likely be entering the Omega 4 relay.  Events have forced Shepard’s hand such that we must go now instead of waiting any longer.  This is the conclusion of Shepard’s mission.  Of our mission.  Everyone on this ship has taken her goal for their own.  We will find the Collectors and destroy them so that they will no longer threaten human colonies.  I do not know how long we will be gone.  It is possible we will have to search a long time to find the Collectors’ base.  I hope that is not the case.  Everyone is on knife-edge, ready for battle._

 

_We just concluded a very difficult and complex mission, far larger than anything we have taken on thus far.  If you sift through the news of the systems from this comm buoy, you may be able to decipher what we were doing, but I shall not impart the details in this message.  One of our party was injured, although we hope and expect her to be back to combat ready by the time we breach the Omega 4 relay.  Shepard would take exception to my use of hope.  She insists that good planning, solid training, and a bit of luck are all that one may count on during battle.  She was most unhappy with my reliance on hope in our previous mission.  Still, hope and faith may give one strength to get through the dark times when planning, training, and luck have failed._

 

_Do not desert the old gods, Kolyat.  They still have strength and power, and I will never doubt Arashu’s power the rest of my life.  I scorned her once, to my dismay and also to my ultimate delight, for she gave me Irikah and then you._

 

_I will forever regret the harm I have caused to you. I ask your forgiveness, but I understand if you will not give it.  We all make mistakes.  Some of them are larger than others.  All we may do is seek to repair the damage in whatever fashion possible.  I know I have no right to ask this of you, but please, Kolyat, do not follow in my footsteps.  As a child, I had no choice in the matter.  As a young adult, I knew no other alternatives.  It wasn’t until I met your mother that I began to question.  After you were born, I thought I had no alternative other than to continue my work in order to support the two of you.  It wasn’t until speaking with you that I realized I was wrong.  We might have been poor, but we would have been together, and your mother might still be alive today.  We can relive the past, but unfortunately, we cannot change it._

 

_I am proud of the man you have become.  You are determined to make your own way in this life and to care for others.  I can think of no higher purpose in life.  I have said it before, but it bears repeating:  You are the only good thing I have brought into this galaxy, Kolyat.  I will always love you._

 

_Your father_

 

* * *

 

 

Kolyat wandered aimlessly around the Presidium, at a loss for what to do.  There was nothing he could do, but that didn’t stop him from wishing for some sort of outlet.  When Hama appeared at his side, he wasn’t particularly surprised.  Without a word, she laced her fingers through his and tugged him along.  They slipped over a barrier and ended up sitting on a secluded garden box looking out at the five arms.  “Where are they?” she asked.

 

Kolyat pointed at a spot between Tayseri and Zakara Wards, about two thirds of the way down.  “Over there, about fifty thousand light years away, give or take a few thousand.

 

They sat quietly for a while, watching the air car traffic, until the station rotated enough that Tayseri Ward had gone from sun to shadow.  “Talk to me, Kol.”

 

He shrugged helplessly.  “Why do I care so much, Hama?” he asked plaintively.

 

“Because he’s your father.”

 

“He left me!”

 

“He came back,” she pointed out.

 

“Yeah, he did.”  Kolyat didn’t sound particularly pleased about that as he kicked his heels against the planter box.

 

“Do you wish he hadn’t?”

 

Kolyat growled in subvocals that indicated anger and confusion.  “If he hadn’t…” he started then lapsed into silence.

 

“Then what?” she prodded.

 

“I might have ended up like him,” he finished sullenly.

 

She shook her head and bumped her shoulder against his.  “I don’t think so.  You hate what he does too much.”

 

“Can I tell you something, Hama?”  At her wordless nod, he continued.  “I think I feel sorry for him.  I was furious with him for so long, for leaving so much.  My family lied to me for years about what happened to my mother.  Then he told me what really happened, what he did to those who killed her.  It seems like he tried so hard to be normal, but he never could.  He fell in love and someone killed her.  He got his vengeance, but I think it messed him up inside.  I’m glad they’re dead, but I wish…”

 

“What?” she asked when he was quiet too long.

 

When Kolyat spoke, his words were so quiet she had to lean in to hear, even in this secluded space.  “I wish he would have come back home…afterward.  I mean, he was gone a lot when I was a kid, but when he was home, it was nice.  We did things together.  We were a family.  Then after the funeral, he was just gone.  They both were.”

 

For an instant, she saw the lost, lonely boy he had been, the one who still lurked inside the adult body and who was still scared of forming attachments because they might go away, just like his parents did.  Without thinking about it, she crooned the subharmonics meant for comfort.

 

“I don’t understand him, Hama,” he admitted, confusion coming to the fore in his voice.  “It doesn’t bother him at all, being a hired killer.  How can you be so cold and still care about people?”

 

“It’s the Compact,” she said.  “Haven’t you noticed that you can tell which security guards are Compact trained?  They don’t care about anything other than their assignment.  I even see it in my mom, although not often.  It’s the opposite with her.  When she thinks I’m not watching, she stops being polite and friendly, and she just becomes…cold.  Calculating. She’s not mean.  It’s just more like everything else is just a disguise she puts on when she has to talk to people.  That’s why I hate the Compact.  I don’t know if my mom really loves me or if it’s all just an act.  Maybe having a kid was just part of some master plan of hers.”

 

Kolyat looked at her as he searched his memories.  “My father loved my mother.  I’m sure of it.”

 

It was Hama’s turn to shrug.  “My mom said that Thane was unique, that your mother changed him.”

 

Kolyat thought about that for a while.  “He called her a siha.”

 

Hama smiled sadly.  “He must have loved her very much, then.”

 

“Yeah, well, he calls Shepard the same thing,” he said angrily.

 

She laughed, drawing an irritated look from him.  “I can see his point.”  When Kolyat’s scowl deepened, she grinned.  “She’s like a human Blasto, saving colonies, stopping geth attacks, generally being a hero.  Just wait until the movie comes out,” she teased him, making him groan and press his palm against his forehead.

 

"I hate the Compact," Kolyat said abruptly.  

 

Hama laughed, the sound drifting out over the alien flowers.  "Me, too.  Let's get rid of it," she suggested giddily.

 

That finally brought a rare smile to Kolyat's face.  "Deal.  Just as soon as I finish my tour here.  Can you wait three years?"

 

She leaned into him.  "Already told my mom I’m staying here instead of going back to Kahje."

 

Kolyat wrapped his arm around her waist and they both looked out over the Wards toward that distant spot on the horizon where the Omega 4 relay resided.  

 

"He'll be back," she whispered.  "I'll keep you company until we hear."

 

"What if it's a month or more?"

 

She squeezed his knee.  "I'll still be here.  Don't give up hope, Kolyat.  Sometimes, it’s all we have."

 

“No, I have you,” he said seriously.

 

* * *

 

 

Thane paced restlessly around the tiny space in Life Support.  The Normandy had just passed through the Omega system relay and would enter the mysterious Omega 4 relay in only a few hours. After so many months, so many hardships and changes, it was hard to conceive that the end was actually in sight.

 

Less than a year ago, he had resigned himself to death, taking a dangerous contract that he had no expectation of surviving.  Against all odds, he’d not only survived, but found an entirely new life.  He allowed himself to slip into memory.

 

_The rising sun illuminates the human’s face, so determined to find him that she and her squad had fought through dozens of Nassana’s mercs.  Inadvertently, she saves him from Kalahira’s embrace this night.  She offers him one last mission, a chance at redemption.  It is a better end than he deserves, and he takes it gladly._

 

His memories skip around.  He sees her in the middle of a firefight, a force of destruction that he would be loath to face singlehanded on the battlefield.  He sees her sitting across from him, one of a dozen different ship models in her hands.  He sees her in his bed, lost in passion.  He felt a chill run down his spine.   _You’re mine, Thane Krios._  Remembering those words, he heard Arashu speak through her siha.

 

He slammed his palms down on the table, standing in the same place he had been when she uttered those words.   _Why?_ He railed at the goddess.   _You sent her to me for a reason.  Is it nothing more than to protect her on this last mission?_  Was this to be his last day among the living?  He thought he was ready, but now, with the stark reality staring him in the face, he was forced to admit that he wasn’t.

 

He had never wanted to live more in the last ten years than he did tonight.   _I want to see you fighting and clawing for every minute to stay alive, Thane!_  He had done his best to prove it to her in the hours afterward.  He felt a pang of guilt at the marks on her body that accused the strength of his passion, but she refused to let him apologize.  She had only pressed a soft kiss to his lips before she dressed quickly and went back to her cabin to prepare.

 

He tried to force his thoughts to a different direction, thinking back to those moments that gave him a brief, pale pleasure in the midst of his battlesleep.  How many innocents had he saved?  How many depraved criminals had he sent to an early grave?   _Was it enough?_ he asked Kalahira.  He measured it against the harm done to his son with his absence and flinched.  He measured it against the loss of Irikah and groaned aloud.  Maybe the only way he could truly atone was at the price of his life and happiness.

 

Suddenly he wished for nothing more than to see Shepard at his door, to see her holding a box of miniature ship parts, accepting the cup of tea he had brewed for her.  Those moments were so brief, but each one precious.  He treasured them all, letting them slide along the thread of his memories like sparkling jewels.  She wouldn’t come.  Not now.  She would be busy preparing for their trip through the Omega 4 relay.

 

He groaned again and paced the short length of hallway in his room.  No matter how hard he tried, the peace of meditation was beyond him tonight.  When he closed his eyes, he saw only Shepard.  He needed her badly.  He needed to confess his fears, and she was his goddess come to life.  In all his life, she was the only one who truly understood him, a warrior to match his own skills, hardened by battle and bad luck.

 

Without realizing it, he was in the lift, stabbing the button for her deck with uncharacteristic force.  She was staring at a datapad, a whole stack of them on the desk next to her.  “Thane!” she said, coming to her feet in surprise.  He didn’t allow her to continue.  What he had to say was too urgent.

 

The words poured out of him, his fears, his faults, his preparations for death.  She tried to comfort him, but he pulled away.  Suddenly, he couldn’t hold it in any longer.  He pounded his fist on her desk, tears streaming unnoticed down his face.  He was afraid to die!  He was afraid to lose her.

 

This time, when she came to him, he didn’t pull away.  “Be alive with me, Thane,” she whispered.  Her kisses absolved his guilt and soothed the fear in his gut.  The anger from earlier was gone, washed away in a tide of love and understanding.  Her fingers made short work of the buckles and zippers on his leathers, just as he easily divested her of her clothing.  She was luminous as she took his hand and led him to her bed.  Hands joined, always touching, it was as if they were one.  When they joined together, he found his redemption.

 

Afterward, they curled around each other, knowing the odds facing them but refusing to admit them.  Delicate touches reaffirmed life and desire in this sacred space and time, while duty and the threat of death hovered anxiously just outside.  All too soon, EDI broke in to inform them that they were nearing the Omega 4 relay.  He held on for one last kiss, claiming this moment for himself before he allowed her to slip away into her Commander persona.  They dressed in silence and went to face their destiny.

 

* * *

 

  
A/N: Thank you to Orchidellia, my beta reader!

 


	32. End Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Collector Base

Shepard watched with exhausted relief as the human Reaper abomination fell from the superstructure into the depths.  Beside her, Jack cheered.  “Take that, fucker!”  Shepard bent over and rested her hands on her knees for a second and snuck a look at Thane.  Even his reserves were running low, and she’d caught him gasping for air more than once.  Twice she had been tempted to send him away, but each time, she had yielded to the gut instinct that said to keep him nearby, to rely on the familiarity on the battlefield in spite of the risk of pushing him too hard.  She knew he would give everything, and she was ruthless enough to demand it.  The spark of compassion was so far buried under the exigency of the moment that it might as well not exist.

 

“Right, we’re gonna blow this place sky high,” she said with satisfaction as she headed for the controls.  “Ground team, evacuate to the Normandy,” she ordered.

  
“Incoming call from the Illusive Man, Shepard,” Joker informed her.  Thane stepped up and used his omni tool to project the Illusive Man’s image.

  
“I’m busy,” Shepard said without looking up.

 

“Shepard, you’ve done an excellent job so far.  But we have an unprecedented opportunity in front of us.  A timed radiation pulse would kill the Collectors but leave the machinery and technology intact.  This is our chance, Shepard!  We can harvest the technology here and use it against the Reapers.”

 

Still without looking up, Shepard’s hands on the controls stilled.  “What are you saying?”

 

“Our best chance is to turn their resources against them.  The Collectors were working directly for the Reapers.  Who knows what we’ll find here  This base is a gift!  We can’t just destroy it.”

 

Slowly she stood up and turned to face the projection.  “Our mission was to destroy the base, to ensure the safety of humanity against the Collectors.”

 

“Shepard, you died fighting for what you believed.  I brought you back so you could keep fighting.”  He ignored or couldn’t see the grimace on her face at his words.  “Some would say what we did to you was going too far, but look what you’ve accomplished.  I didn’t discard you because I knew your value.  Don’t be so quick to discard this facility.  Think of the potential.”

 

Shepard turned around and paced a few steps.  He was echoing all her own thoughts.  She hadn’t had a chance to find out if Mordin or Legion had discovered anything of value, but now she had the opportunity to save the entire base for later exploration.  “I agree,” she said, not seeing his visible relief.  “We’ll save it, come back later to mine it.”

 

“What?  No!” Jack yelled as Thane ended the transmission.  “You can’t do that, Shepard!  You know you can’t trust that bastard!”

  
“Stand down, Jack,” Shepard said flatly as she reprogrammed the controls.  “I’m not about to give him free reign over this, but he’s right.  I swore I’d use any resource at my disposal, and this is too important to pass up.”  She ignored the rest of Jack’s angry cursing as she finished her task.  “Alright, let’s get the hell out of here.  We’ve got ten minutes before the reactor core fires a pulse that will kill anything left on board.”

 

Screeching metallic sounds reverberated through the air and the platform shivered under their feet.  All three looked around apprehensively.  Shepard pulled out her Cain while Thane and Jack scanned the chamber.  “Fuck!” Shepard and Jack both swore as the Reaper abomination reared its ugly head and started attacking them again.  “What’s it take to put this thing down?” Shepard yelled as she dove for cover.  

 

She got the Cain spinning up and stepped out to fire.  The platform rocked crazily underneath them, throwing her aim off and making her swear again.  Thane and Jack were both throwing everything they had at the monstrosity.  Bit by bit, darting from cover to cover, they wore it down, but always, Shepard could feel the seconds ticking away in the back of her mind.  

 

They were running out of time.

 

Three minutes, ten seconds to put the abomination down for good.

 

Twenty seconds where Thane nearly fell to his death.

 

Thirty seconds that felt like five minutes as platforms collided and metal fell everywhere.

 

Did she black out?  How many seconds lost?  Another thirty seconds to gather Thane and free Jack.

 

They ran.  Never in her life had minutes ticked by so fast.

 

It was a desperate uphill sprint to the Normandy through a hail of enemy gunfire and with every footfall, precious seconds ticked by.  

 

A huge chunk of the ceiling fell just in front of her, smashing the platforms between the hill and the Normandy and opening a huge seven meter gap.  She saw Jack turn to yell at Joker.  Thane was shooting targets over her shoulder as she reached the top of the hill.  Only a few more steps and she forced herself to ignore the burning legs and gasping lungs as she ran and launched herself into space.

 

She wasn’t going to make it!  The gap was too big, but finally the massive ship tilted toward her as EDI corrected for the gap.  Shepard slammed chest first into the airlock floor and scrambled for a handhold.  Thane immediately grabbed her arm and yanked her forcefully into the Normandy.  Next to him, Jack grabbed the other arm and pulled.  

 

The three of them lay in a tangled mess in the gangway as EDI counted down, “Ten.  Nine.  Eight.”  

 

“I know, EDI, I know!” Joker yelled as his hands flew over the haptic screens.  Shepard pulled herself to her feet and staggered to the cockpit, dropping her helmet on the floor.  She pounded on the back of Joker’s chair.  “Go, go, go!”

 

Shepard and Joker both stared at the rear screen showing the Collectors’ base shrinking all too slowly behind them.  She winced when the screen flared an electric blue and then staggered backward as Joker punched in additional speed.  The atmosphere was tense as EDI raced to accelerate out of the death zone.

 

Joker suddenly yelled out, “Yeah!  Take that, you sons of bitches!  You’re dead, we’re not!”  He whooped again as he steered them through the debris field and back toward the Omega 4 relay.  

 

Shepard collapsed over the back of his chair as the tension drained out of her.  “We’re safe,” she whispered.  “All of us!”  She bent down and kissed Joker’s cheek, laughing as he blushed bright red.  “You are the best damn pilot I’ve ever seen, Joker.  Thank you, and EDI, too.”

 

“Aw, shucks, Shepard.  Wasn’t nothing that that best damn pilot in the entire _galaxy_ couldn’t handle,” he said with a crooked grin.  

 

She clapped him on the shoulder.  “Take us home, Joker.”

 

She turned around to find Thane standing right behind her.  Before she could say or do anything, he reached out and pulled her into a crushing embrace, devouring her lips with his.  She met him with equal passion, ignoring Joker’s catcall and whistle.  Armor made for a poor embrace, but neither of them cared at the moment.  Their mission was complete, and he was alive!  So was she, and that was all that mattered right now.  

 

Jack pounded on her back.  “Alright, you two.  Get a room!”

 

Shepard pressed her forehead against his and stared into his shining dark eyes.  “I have a call to make,” she whispered.  

 

“I’ll be waiting for you,” he said against her lips.  “Do not be long.”

 

Reluctantly, he let her go, and as she walked down the gangway into CIC, each member of the crew had to stop her and shake her hand or give her a hug, many with tears in their eyes.  Kelly hugged her and held on tight while crying into her shoulder, in spite of how uncomfortable it must have been.  Eventually, the storm passed and she wiped her eyes.  “I’m sorry, Commander.”

  
“Shh, don’t be.  We’re safe now.  We’re going home.”  She patted the young counselor on the back as she made her way through the hanging cables and broken stations to the conference room.  The crew was already hard at work on urgent repairs.  Shepard sensed they needed the activity to distract themselves from the gruesome fate they had narrowly escaped.

 

Shepard ducked a fallen beam as she entered the conference room.  “EDI, connect me to the Illusive Man, please.”

 

As expected, he was waiting for her on the other end of the QEC.  “Shepard, it’s a new day, and we have you to thank for our deliverance. You’ve always understand what it takes to win.  Well, it’s paid off.  Adapting that technology could be the biggest advance since the discovery of the relays.  We’ll secure our dominance in the galaxy.  Against the Reapers and beyond.”

 

His swaggering optimism grated on her.  “I did it to save humanity, as well as the rest of the races in the galaxy.  Not to make humanity stronger than everyone else.”

 

He smirked and tipped his drink back.  “You know my mission has always been to promote and secure humanity’s continued strength.  Don’t let idealism blind you, Shepard.  Using the base to its fullest potential is the best way to fulfill ours.”

 

“I plan to,” she warned him.  “”We’ll go back there, but it won’t be just Cerberus.  I’m sharing this data with every race in the galaxy.  We need to be united as well as strong if we want to have any chance at all of defeating the Reapers.  We can’t afford to be divided with humanity against the rest.  You know that as well as I do.”

 

“Indeed I do, Shepard,” he acknowledged, raising his glass to her.

 

She stepped back with one foot and crossed her arms over her chest.  “You get selfish, you start dreaming about power, and we’ll all pay the price.”

 

“Don’t presume to judge me or my methods.  Cerberus will be ready to face the Reapers, and through us, humanity.  And you’ll be the one to lead us all, Shepard.”

 

“You brought me back to lead this war, and that’s what I’m going to do.  You need me as much as I need you,” she told him.  “You need me to give you legitimacy.  I still need your resources.  But I don’t work for you anymore.  Starting now, it’s a partnership.”  She grinned wolfishly at him.  “I’ll be in touch with the new terms of our agreement.”

 

She walked out feeling three meters tall, plans already running through her head involving the Shadow Broker, the geth, and every sentient race in the galaxy.  Behind her, the Illusive Man pulled up the Collector base schematics and sat back with his own enigmatic smile.  

 

Back in CIC, Legion handed her a datapad filled with the information he took from the Collector base.  It was only partially transcribed, but the threat was clear.  There were thousands of Reapers lurking out there in dark space.  She had bought the galaxy some time.  How much, she didn’t know.  Months, a year or two maybe.  She only hoped it was enough time to do everything she needed to do.

 

“Joker, takes us to Omega,” she ordered.  “We need some repairs, and I think we’re all owed some shore leave.”  Her crew gave a ragged cheer as she headed for her cabin.  

 

Thane swept her up in his arms as soon as she walked through the door.  He didn’t care that she smelled like blood and battle.  Her pains and exhaustion fell away as easily as the pieces of her armor.  “We have some living to catch up on, Thane Krios,” she said in a rare moment when they weren’t kissing.  

 

He picked her up and tossed her on the bed, following swiftly behind.  “I don’t intend to let you leave this bed until we reach Omega,” he warned with more than a hint of hunger and need in his voice and hands.  

 

She pulled him down on top of her.  “Not even for a shower?” she teased.

 

He nuzzled her neck.  “You smell like a victorious siha.  Why should I wish to change that?”  His hands started to work their magic on her.  “Except to add the scent of desire and fulfillment.”

 

They had completed the impossible, returned from a suicide mission with all members still alive.  Their enemy was destroyed.  They came together in an emotional high that only comes after the stress of near death.  Together, they celebrated life in the best way possible.

 

Tomorrow was another day, one filled with more impossible challenges.  Instead of one enemy, there were thousands, but that was a fight for another day.  For tonight, there was love and there was life.

 

* * *

 

 

The hours passed slowly on the Citadel.  Kolyat and Hama had talked a lot over the past hours.  Kolyat had opened up more about his past than ever before.  In the spirit of all young adults the galaxy over, they decided they knew exactly how to solve the galaxy’s problems, but decided to start with Kahje.  A lot could happen in three years, but neither of them expected things to stay quiet for that long.  Laying plans and hatching plots helped the time go by more easily.

 

Finally, from fifty thousand light years away, give or take a few thousand, a terse message flowed through the comm buoys, routed and rerouted, but with a Spectre’s security clearance that gave it priority messaging.  Kolyat opened it immediately while Hama looked over his shoulder.  

 

_We survived.  We were victorious._

_TK_

 

Koylat buried his face against Hama’s shoulder and let out a shuddering sigh of relief, but refused to give word to his feelings.  Hama simply crooned reassurances as she held him close.  

 

* * *

 

 

Elsewhere in Citadel space, the news that the Normandy had accomplished the impossible and returned from the Omega 4 relay was already filtering through the known space networks.  No one was terribly surprised to learn that its infamous Commander was still alive and at the helm.  Intelligence networks, security agencies, information brokers, and even governments all took note.  Plans that had been marked “contingency” were dusted off and activated.

 

Before Shepard fired one round against the Reapers, she would first have to face the galaxy.  But as several last minute intelligence reports noted, this was a woman who made a habit of accomplishing the impossible.

 

* * *

 

 A/N:  Oh my gosh.  I can’t believe I did it!  Thank you to everyone who stuck with me through this whole thing.  I had no idea it would turn out so long and involved, but it was a labor of love, and I learned so much while writing it.

 

Thank you so very, very much to my most excellent beta reader, Orchidellia.  She helped me with some tough decisions and was a great sounding board for various scenes and characters.  

 

Thank you also to everyone who read and reviewed.  The reviews gave me impetus to keep going and even some ideas to sprinkle in.

 

This is the end of the Mass Effect 2 story.  It will continue into Mass Effect 3 in this same story.  I will warn you now that the ME3 story will take place in an AU but with elements from the game still around.

 

I’d love to hear what you think, and if you have anything that was a particular favorite or if there was something you didn’t like.  Do you have any guesses as to where we’ll be heading in ME3? Will the Council ever believe Shepard?  Tune in and find out.

 

Music is really important to me when I’m writing, and I wanted to list a few of the most important.  I don’t want a song, but I like being exposed to new music, so maybe this will introduce folks to some new cool songs.  _Lungs_ and _Ceremonials_ , by Florence and the Machine, particularly “Drumming Song” and “Never Let Me Go”.   For Thane, I think of “Alive” by Shinedown and “Comeback” by Redlight King.

 

I just want to add in a couple of other things.  I probably should have done this up front, but Bioware gets the credit for coming up with the characters and universe.  The original characters, actions, and craft in this story are mine.  

 

Stay tuned for more!

 

 


	33. Diaspora

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that the Collectors have been defeated, it 's time to take on the galaxy and force them to realize the upcoming threat.

The damage to the Normandy was extensive, but not fatal. Kind of like the damage done to her crew. They had survived the assault on the Collector Base and brought all of their kidnapped crew home, but it was obvious that not all of them returned intact.

Dr. Chakwas took a moment to look out into the crew mess. The windows were still starred and cracked from bullet holes and one pane had been entirely removed. She was grateful she had work to do. It kept her mind busy instead of speculating on what might have happened. Several crew members had been through already, and she'd dispensed enough sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medicines that she would need to restock on Omega. She was making her own private bets as to which crew members would request reassignment from Cerberus.

Miranda strode through the mess hall, checking on repairs and personnel. She knew better than anyone the importance of keeping busy. She had turned her office over to Kelly to do crew evaluations, but privately, she had already decided that Kelly was too traumatized to keep on board. You could say you were ready to face death, but when push came to shove, not many people actually were. That was fine. Those who chose to leave would find other jobs in Cerberus, and EDI was more than capable of picking up slack. In fact, since Joker had unshackled the AI, she had become much more engaging and helpful. She had never thought about it before, but today thinking about the morality of keeping a sentient being shackled in data chains was a relief compared to reviewing the Collector base mission. She had reviewed the camera logs from Shepard's strike team and suppressed a shiver at the memory of the Reaper fetus. A few months ago, she would have agreed with the Illusive Man that keeping the Collector base intact was the right thing to do, but she seemed to be full of doubts about Cerberus lately. Perhaps she would discuss it with Shepard later.

Zaeed's quarters had become the place for those who preferred alcohol as a way to either drown their sorrows or celebrate their successes. Right now, Jack and Grunt were exchanging stories, and Grunt was grumbling loudly about having missed such a glorious battle. The few regular crew members who braved the room were rewarded with a place to sit and as much alcohol as they wanted.

EDI was busy optimizing systems and rerouting power and controls around non-functioning services and stations. She was also cautiously exchanging data with Legion through a heavily firewalled connection. Trust was something humans talked about so much, but she was discovering that it could apply to synthetic life as well. A large part of her processing power was still devoted to observing her pilot, who was quite exuberant at destroying the enemy that had defeated him nearly three years ago.

The hangar deck had been converted into a makeshift dormitory, since several of the crew cabins were either exposed to space or had sustained severe damage. Samara and Jacob were cataloging the supplies they had remaining and trying to repair the damage from the oculus. The relocated crew were doing their best to ignore the fact that only EDI's kinetic forcefields were standing between them and the empty vacuum of space in a couple of places.

The Loft had sustained quite a bit of damage as well. Shepard's collection of model ships were strewn around the office area, most of them broken into multiple pieces as parts of the ceiling had broken away and destroyed the display case. The door wouldn't close completely, leading Shepard to tell EDI not to let the elevator up without her express permission. The fish tank had an alarming crack running the entire length, but so far, the integrity was holding.

The bed, however, was the only place that concerned the two occupants. Debris had been dumped onto the floor along with armor and clothing until only naked skin and dusty sheets remained. The initial exhilaration faded to sleep, as much as they both fought against it.

Thane was always a light sleeper, so when Shepard stirred against him, he immediately shifted to a near-conscious state. It was one of the downsides to sharing his bed, but on the whole, he much preferred it to sleeping alone anymore. Still mostly asleep, he stroked her back, which usually calmed her down. Instead, she whimpered and arched against him. "Thane!" she suddenly exclaimed and threw her hand up overhead. The motion woke her completely, and she blinked in confusion at finding herself in bed with her lover instead of in her dream.

"Shhh, siha," he whispered in her ear. "I'm here." He turned on his side to face her, seeing blue eyes open wide with remembered fear.

A single sob escaped her throat as she wrapped her arm around his chest and held tight. "I dreamed you fell," she cried.

A ripple of unease flowed down his spine. Drell didn't dream the same way humans did. Eidetic memories negated the need for the brain to sort the memories of the day, but it took time to process the more traumatic memories so that he could remember without the total recall. It hadn't been long enough, and he fell back into the memory of skidding helplessly along the tilting platform, seeing Shepard racing after him. He tried to yell at her to stop, to save herself, but he couldn't stop himself from reaching out his hand. His body jerked rigid as he remembered falling over the edge, only to be caught in her iron grip.

"It's okay, you're here. We're both here," she whispered urgently in his ear as she peppered his face with kisses. He realized he had been speaking aloud and shuddered, wrapping his arms around her. Together, they held each other tight, trying to drive away the nightmares and memories with touch and kisses. He needed his human angel more than anything right now, even more than breath itself. Wordlessly, he rolled on top of her and asked permission with a rolling nudge of his hips. She opened to him, as needy for reaffirmation as he was. Her hands were everywhere on him, stroking, touching, exploring, unwilling to let go for a single second. He relished the feeling of her under and around him, the warmth of her hands, the internal fire of her body. He held on until she reached her climax before he allowed himself to fall after her.

He doubled over in a fit of coughing that left him even more exhausted. Shepard pressed herself against his back in silent comfort, but he could feel the tension in her that should not have been, the tension that came from worry about him. The last few days had been hard on him, and disconcertingly, his body was taking much longer than it ever had before to recover. Even a few months ago, he would have been able to roll out of bed and head straight to a mission. But today, his limbs felt leaden, and it wasn't simply the ecstatic fulfillment of his body's desires. Neither of them spoke, but his illness hung heavy over them both. Finally the fit passed and he regained his breath.

They were less than an hour out from Aria's domain of Omega. Shepard hugged him carefully and slid out of bed. "I need a shower," she announced. "I smell like a varren with a week old catch. After that, breakfast. Or lunch, or whatever the hell Gardner is serving. I'm starving. How about you?"

He smiled as he looked over her nude form. "I suppose now that one appetite has been sated, I can focus on the other. I will await you."

His lips quirked up as he heard her shriek and curse in the bathroom. From what he could deduce, there was no hot water. She would not linger then, as she usually did. Slowly, he gathered his discarded leathers and shook them out. They needed repair again, but they would serve for Omega. Indeed, the slums and gangs of Omega seemed insignificant compared to the hell they had just traversed.

He paused and put his hands together in prayer.  _Thanks to you, Arashu, for seeing your siha safe through her battles. May you continue to keep her safe long after her final battle is over. Thank you for saving the life of this wicked one and allowing me to stay at her side for as long as possible._ He paused to wonder how much longer he would have. He sensed that the strain of the battle through the Collector base had done irreparable damage to his body, but he didn't want to burden Shepard with that knowledge yet. He wanted her to savor her victory; it was well-deserved.

After an extremely short shower, she emerged, shivering and picking her way through the damage. "How about we blow this popsicle stand," she said. At his quirked eyebrow ridges, she grinned. "I meant, let's go spend the night on Omega while Donnelly sees what he can fix up. I need a night away, before I go see Aria and have it out with the Illusive Man. I'll need to refine my strategy, which at the moment consists of knocking heads together until they agree to do what I want," she finished with a flippant grin. "I think the Council might get a bit pissed if I tried that, though."

On CIC deck, Shepard found Miranda. "Rotate the crew for seventy two hours of shore leave. Then we're headed to the Citadel. I'll be back in twenty four hours and we can sit down and discuss where we go from there.

"Understood, Shepard. Enjoy your leave," she added with an understanding smile, her eyes sliding to Thane standing behind her.

Shepard had always thought of Omega as schizophrenic, rather like its queen. She and Thane were headed to one of the swankier parts of Omega, where the beggars and thieves were kept off the streets, and the hotels and shops rivaled anything found on the Citadel. But walk a few blocks in the wrong direction, and you would end up in the ghettos where armor and a bad attitude were your best defense.

Thanks to Liara, she had enough credits to buy the best room in the hotel for the night, and she intended to enjoy it. The suite certainly didn't disappoint. She looked at the expansive hot tub and cooed with delight. "I'll see you in an hour. Maybe."

Even without Kepral's Syndrome, Thane would have passed up the hot tub. He needed only an oiled cloth to clean his scales, and he certainly didn't need to inhale the steam that was even now filling up the luxurious bathroom.

Instead, he removed his coat and settled down in the center of the living space to meditate. He heard the sound of Shepard splashing indolently in the hot tub and let it slip away. The thoughts of her naked body were harder to let go, but he'd had plenty of practice on that topic over the last few months. The feeling of the plush carpet and the cool air brushing his scales were easier to ignore. Soon, the familiar calm weightlessness of no-thought spread through him. Time had no meaning, but after he felt he had sufficiently relaxed, he carefully pushed his memories back through the last few days.

He felt the tiny tremors in his limbs as he recalled the desperate fight and flight through the Collector's base. Slowly, one moment at a time, he remembered watching Shepard run up the hill and launch herself across the gap at the Normandy. He felt his breathing speed up as he thought that she would fall to her death and made a conscious effort to slow his breathing back down. Again and again he replayed that memory until the emotional impact had worn down to something bearable. Over and over, he had to consciously relax his muscles and monitor his breathing and heartbeat. He knew that the casual observer would see none of his distress and that he would look perfectly calm and relaxed. It was a camouflage that had served him very well in the past.

He thought back to his decision to blow the explosives in the Blue Suns' base as well as his slide off the tilting platform and being saved from a plunging death only by Shepard's iron grip. He had to spend an equal amount of time and energy to process the emotions that were associated with his own near-death experiences. He had faced death several times, but the equanimity he achieved when thinking back on each one was hard won through many hours of meditation. It had been easier, he admitted, when he was deep in battlesleep. Then, every emotion was filtered as if wrapped in insulation. Fear, anger, and ecstasy were all reduced to mere shadows of themselves, allowing him to focus on his missions with ruthless efficiency. It was part of what made him arguably the best assassin in the galaxy.

Now those days were behind him. He needed to accept that his time was running out far faster than he wanted. Instead, he tried to be grateful for each day that he still had in front of him. After all, the mission to the Collector's base had colloquially been called the suicide mission by nearly everyone on the Normandy. It was yet another testament to Shepard's indomitable will and Arashu's favor that everyone on her squad had survived and that she had rescued her kidnapped crew as well.

He expanded his lungs as deeply as possible, stopping when he felt a catch that would trigger a coughing fit. He noticed that he had to breathe deeper to obtain enough oxygen even sitting still. Deep in his meditation, he could feel the added strain on his body from the need to breathe harder. It would be even more difficult to run and fight as he had.

He heard more splashing from the bathroom and diverted part of his attention to it. She was getting out. He needed more time to meditate, but he had processed the worst of it for now. He rolled his neck and shoulders and let his consciousness spool back out from his body to take in the room.

Her footsteps were light, but she could never sneak up on him, no matter how hard she tried. He actually felt the heat radiating from her body before she wrapped her arms around him. Turning, he smiled to see her flushed pink all over her body. He kissed fingertips made wrinkled by her long soaking. "I need to put one of those in the Normandy," she sighed.

"Do you not feel as if you have been boiled alive?" he teased.

"Yes," she sighed. "It's glorious.

He picked out one wet strand of hair, watching as a drop fell onto her shoulder and rolled down her breast. "We should eat," he rumbled, although he was feeling an entirely different sort of hunger.

Apparently she felt the same way because she tossed him a data pad and laughed. "They have a great room service, I hear."

"It's not like we're missing any attractions on Omega," he agreed as he absently ordered enough food for six. And if they scandalized the server, she was professional enough to pretend she heard and saw nothing out of the ordinary.

* * *

Someone had made an attempt to clean up her cabin. Shepard felt a minor pang of sadness for the model ships that were gone, likely tossed in the trash. A late casualty were the fish. Donnelly had decided the tank was too close to cracking, so it had been drained overnight. She missed them. She had enjoyed watching them swimming around without a care in the world, and in spite of Garrus' doubts, she'd kept them alive the whole time they were gearing up for the suicide mission. Now they were gone, and she knew it was only a prelude to a larger exodus.

With a heavy sigh, she tossed a datapad back on the stack. Aria had been a tough sell, but ultimately, she had agreed with Shepard's assessment. She only hoped that it was a positive sign of things to come. If the hard-nosed, pragmatic queen of Omega could see the danger looming in the future, hopefully the Council would as well. Aria had offered Omega as a training area and a place of refuge for family and friends currently residing on vulnerable planets. Abruptly she laughed out loud. One tiny space station down. The rest of the galaxy to go.

One thing at a time, she reminded herself. And now, she needed to go talk to her new partner.

The Illusive Man was waiting for her, as relaxed and composed as ever. "Shepard. The shipyard at Delatoire is expecting you. The chief engineer can't give me an estimate for repair time until the Normandy arrives, but you should expect it to be at least a couple of months from what Miranda has told me."

"I've got a list of changes I want the shipyard to make while we're docked," she said, lifting a data pad that had the list Miranda had already sent him.

"I saw. You really think you'll need troop transport?"

She nodded. "We know they have close to a thousand ships coming in. We're assuming they don't do orbital strikes to kill the population, which means they must have some sort of ground troops, but whether it's for abduction or outright slaughter is unknown yet." She scowled as she heard the words leaving her lips. Such an ugly future awaited them, even if they were ultimately successful in defeating the Reapers.

"We'll make the changes. I saw Miranda's notes about which crew will be leaving, so we should have enough room to add in some troop quarters. I hope you're comfortable having an unshackled AI running the Normandy," he added in a way that somehow managed to convey she'd taken leave of her senses.

"EDI's more than proven herself to me and my crew. I expect you to leave her alone during the repairs," Shepard warned.

He shrugged. "It's your call. We'll be removing the IFF so that it can be placed in one of our research ships."

She suppressed a smile as she spoke. "Sorry. We've already removed it. The IFF is traveling with Legion and Tali to the geth so that they can copy it. I'm sure you see the danger in having only one copy. Just ask Joker or EDI about how dangerous the debris field is on the other side of the relay. We can't risk the only ship with the IFF getting destroyed."

She must have finally hit a nerve with the unflappable man because he sat upright and glared at her. "You can't do that, Shepard. We need that IFF."

"Relax. You'll get a copy within one to two months, according to Legion. Also, I've asked Miranda to lead my research team at the Collector's base. Again, I'm sure you see the danger of a single point failure."

He relaxed back in his chair and waved his cigarette around nonchalantly. There was nothing in his posture to indicate that five seconds ago he was seriously pissed off. She admired his acting skills. "Anything else?" he asked sarcastically.

"Now that you mention it," she drawled, "I'll be distributing the data on the Collectors and the Reapers to all the races when I reach the Citadel. If you don't want Cerberus to be hunted across the entire galaxy, you'd be wise to avoid any hint that you are planning to use that human Reaper abomination for any sort of personal gain."

He waved his hand, indicating he was waiting for the rest of her demands.

"I'll be your spokesman," she told him. "But I want Cerberus to clean up their act. You'll undermine my authority if things like Pragia, Akuze and Admiral Kohaku get out. I want you to drop all illicit research and focus on war readiness."

"You're a soldier, Shepard," he snapped. "Don't try to meddle with the research and business side of things. Besides, if it wasn't for that 'illicit research', we wouldn't have been able to bring you back. Can you honestly say you wish you were still dead?"

She shrugged. "I'd be dead. I wouldn't have an opinion. But since you spent billions of credits bringing me back, I expect you to listen to what I have to say. I'm your public connection to the Council and galactic politics."  _God help us all_ , she thought to herself and continued. "We need each other, so stop treating me like your errand girl. I've had enough of it."

He nodded and lifted his drink to her. "Fair enough. As of now, you're the leader of the Ragnarök cell. You are the highest priority project in Cerberus. So, what are your plans?"

She hadn't been expecting that. His angle was immediately clear to her, however. He was trying to cut her off, giving her enough authority to feel important, but still subtly expressing that she worked for him. After she got Liara involved, things would change. For now, she'd play along. "I'm headed to the Citadel and the Council. After that, I'll be sending some of my specialists off to talk to their governments. First and foremost, though, we need a navy that can stand up to the Reapers. I'm planning to play the turians against the asari for their shipyards."

He laughed softly. "I take it your currency is the new Normandy design?"

"Got it in one," she said. "Let me congratulate you on designing such a spectacular ship, by the way."

"I figured as much. No, as much as I'd like to profit from the SR2's design, I agree that it, along with your upgrades, will make an excellent bargaining chip." He finished his drink and stood up. "Very well, Shepard. It sounds like you have things well in hand. Keep me informed of your progress."

The QEC flickered out, and Shepard just shook her head. He was wily, and she knew she was out of her depth when it came to playing in galactic politics. She'd managed to surprise him once, but she had the unnerving feeling that he'd already predicted her every move and had a countermeasure waiting. But for now, things were going according to plan.

* * *

Three days later, she was in front of the Council with her specialists. She took a grim satisfaction in seeing them squirm at the sight of a geth. She had insisted that every species with an ambassador on the Citadel be included. Last night, she had given Thane an advance copy of her notes to pass along to Milar as a gesture of good faith.

"You can't be serious, Shepard," the turian Councilor objected. "You expect us to take the word of this geth? The geth have been enemies of organic life for over three hundred years!"

"I'm dead serious, Councilor," Shepard replied. "And I'm not asking you to take Legion's word alone. This data has been vetted by Tali'Zorah vas Normandy. If a quarian can put aside her differences with the geth and work with him on a life and death mission, surely you can open your mind to the idea that the geth are not the monsters we have believed. The data that we have gathered prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Reapers are real and they are a deadly threat to our continued existence. We're running out of time, and we need to do everything in our power - politically, socially, economically - to prepare our people and our worlds for this threat."

The asari spoke up. "You are asking us to take a very big leap of faith in short order, Spectre. You are asking each and every government to move immediately to a war footing on nothing more than your word?"

"I'm saying that this is only further proof of what I've been telling you for years. Sovereign was a Reaper, not a geth ship. Compare the specifications to those I've supplied to you, and you'll see they match. How many ships did we lose trying to destroy just one Reaper, Councilors? Look at the data. There are nearly a thousand more such ships out there. Do you really think we can win a war against these things with our current fleets? Our homeworlds and civilian populations are completely unprepared, our colonies completely unprotected."

"Shepard's right," Milar spoke up. "It's time to open our eyes to the danger that's approaching. The data gathered by the Spectre is no more imaginary than the damage done to her ship or to the Citadel two years ago. We would be remiss in our obligations to our people to dismiss her claims."

The asari nodded. "We concur, but it will take time to verify the data."

Time. They didn't have time! Shepard spoke up again. "Councilors, even if we start now, we're looking at catastrophic losses when the Reapers arrive. But if we don't start now, we're facing extinction! Every race, every world, every colony. The Reapers will kill us all, and the cycle will start again, just as it did fifty thousand years ago with the protheans. We can't afford to go through the usual process of committee and budget approvals."

"The alternative is martial law, Spectre. Is that what you would advocate?" the asari asked angrily.

Shepard bit back her first response, which was that she was only advocating for them to pull their heads out of their asses. "If that's what it takes, Councilor. This data needs be spread far and wide. Let the people see the danger coming. Give them the tools to start making their own preparations while governments and militaries start building their fleets and armies."

The elcor spoke up. "Interrogative conjecture - with consequences as extreme as the Spectre suggests, the precautionary principle suggests it would behoove us all to make preparations. Unhappy statement – the Spectre's data appears solid and substantiates her claim that the geth ship from three years ago was truly a Reaper."

Councilors and ambassadors stepped closer together and started to argue with each other. Shepard simply watched, trying to read the clues in body language and tone. Suddenly, the turian Councilor remembered she and her crew were still there. "Thank you, Spectre. We will take your report under advisement. You may leave now."

She bowed and turned to leave, not letting the frustration show on her face until she was outside the Council hall. "Well, now what, Shepard?" Zaeed drawled. "You know they're gonna piss and moan for days before they even decide to agree that they should maybe actually read the goddamn report you gave them."

She nodded. "We all knew this was just the dog and pony show. Now the real work starts. You've each got your assignments while the Normandy's in drydock. I'll see you all at Dark Star later tonight before we head out."

* * *

The party that night was bittersweet. Even though they'd all been celebrating in one way or another since returning through the Omega 4 relay, there was a sense of finality tonight that had been missing. It was doubtful they would all be together again, and the sense of familial separation was painful.

Thane had talked her into getting another little black dress, since the one Kasumi had gotten her had been left behind on Beckenstein with that atrocious statue of Saren. She enjoyed the way his eyes lingered on her legs as she walked around. For once, he wasn't wearing his leathers, but instead was wearing a semi-formal suit.

"Mordin, I have a huge favor to ask of you," she said as she sat down next to him. He was talking with Jacob while reviewing something on his omni tool and finishing off his fourth or fifth drink. She wasn't worried about interrupting, since she knew he could easily manage multiple tasks at once.

"Already know what you plan to ask, Shepard. Already in contact with STG," he said as he scooted over to make room at the booth.

"No, this isn't about the Council, although I really hope they can do something to appoint a new salarian Councilor. No, I wanted to ask you about Thane."

He smiled warmly at her. "I know, Shepard. Thane topic of conversation with STG."

She furrowed her brow in confusion. "What?"

"Have been researching Kepral's Syndrome for some time. Some promising treatments available. Also, looking at Lazarus Project technology as applicable to organ regeneration in drell. Looks promising."

A tentative smile grew on her face. "Really?"

He nodded and showed her something on his omni tool, but it looked like pages of tiny text and chemical equations. "STG very interested in Lazarus technology. Kepral's Syndrome presents intriguing test case."

She laughed. "I bet. So do you really think you can do something for him?"

He quirked his head to one side and patted her hand. "No promises, Shepard. But would like to see you happy. Thane deserves more. So do you. Will be in touch."

She hugged him, feeling more hopeful than she had in days. Next she sought out Zaeed, who was talking with Jack. Jack handed her a longneck as she walked up. "Hey, Zaeed. I haven't forgotten about my promise to you. I've asked the Shadow Broker to help me find Vido. Once the Normandy is back up and running, you're welcome to come aboard, and we'll go after him."

"'Bout goddamn time, Shepard. You know I only agreed to let him go last time cuz you asked so pretty." She stepped back and crossed her arms over her chest, and he chuckled. "And maybe because you had a gun pointed at my head," he conceded.

She grinned and punched him in the shoulder. "We'll find him, and I promise this time, I'll let you shoot him as many times as you want. I've had it with the Suns."

"Wait 'til I get Vido, Shepard. I'll turn 'em around. They ain't such a bad group, or they weren't. Don't matter. Once I get rid of Vido, they'll follow me, and the ones that don't can get an early retirement package." He mimed shooting someone in the head and then blowing smoke away from his fingertip.

Shepard winced. "Makes me glad you're working for me instead of the other way around. What about you, Jack? You up for some merc hunting on the side?"

Jack shuffled her feet and took a swig of her beer. "Yeah, about that, Shepard. I'm not coming back right away."

"What?" She had talked to Jack after their battle at the Collector's base, and the young woman had been enthusiastic about staying on board the Normandy. Shepard suspected it had become Jack's only true home.

"Yeah, um, Samara asked if I wanted to go with her to Thessia. Always wanted to see that part of the galaxy."

"You know the Normandy will end up at Thessia before too long." Shepard had a tour planned of all the major races, and Samara's mission was to talk to the Republic on Thessia and pave the way for her to talk to the ruling council of asari. No one discounted the word of a Justicar, and Shepard was putting a lot of faith in Samara's ability to make things work out for her.

"Yeah, I know," Jack answered. "But Samara offered to teach me a few new tricks that I hadn't seen before. Didn't figure I'd ever get a chance to learn from a thousand year old matriarch again."

"Huh," was Shepard's only response. "I gotta say, Jack, I didn't see that one coming."

Jack finished off her beer and slammed it down on the table. "Don't go reading nothin' into it, Shepard. Maybe I'm just tired of being angry all the time. Cerberus ain't on Thessia and not many humans either. Figure it'll make a nice change of pace."

"How long are you planning to stay on Thessia?"

Jack shrugged. "No idea. I'll find you before the Reapers show, though. Count on it."

"I'm gonna miss you, Jack."

The other woman snorted. "Don't even think about giving me a hug, Shepard."

"How about another beer then?"

"That's alright."

It was similarly hard to say goodbye to Grunt, who she was sending to Wrex for more training and experience, since he would only tear holes in her ship on a lengthy diplomatic mission. Tali, Miranda, and Legion were headed to the geth collective. Tali was nervous, but trying not to show it. Garrus was headed to Palaven to lay the groundwork for Shepard to meet with the Primarch.

Finally she made it back to Thane, who was talking with Kasumi. "Nice dress, Shep," the thief said cheerily. "See, they're not so bad."

"Hush, you," Shepard told her with a laugh. "Are you leaving us, too?" she asked as she explained about Jack.

"Actually, I thought I might stay on the Normandy while it's in dry dock."

Shepard was surprised. "I'm pretty sure there's nothing worth stealing in Delatoire's shipyard, Kasumi."

The thief's painted lips curved up in a wicked smile. "You'd be surprised, Shep."

Shepard turned to see Kasumi looking at Jacob, who'd been tasked with overseeing the Normandy's repairs. "Ah, I see. Well, I'm glad to have you on board with us. I was beginning to think the Normandy was going to be awfully quiet when it gets out of dry dock."

Kasumi laughed. "You're sending Grunt, Z and Jack away. Of course it's going to be quiet." She watched as Jacob got up to head to the bar. "I think I need another drink, Shep. I'll be in touch."

Thane reached out and pulled her closer to him on the bench so that their thighs were touching. "I, too, appreciate your look tonight, siha," he said with a devilish smile as he ran his hand up the inside of her thigh. She shivered and tried very hard to maintain a normal expression.

"I'm kind of digging the casual look you've got going on, Krios," she said as she slid a hand under his jacket and stroked circles on his back against the purple silk shirt he was wearing. "Wanna dance?"

They threaded their way through the writhing dancers to find a secluded spot on the far side of the crowd. Even if their relationship was no longer a secret to the crew, neither wanted to be exposed to the prying eyes and gossip of their shipmates. Here, they were just another anonymous couple grinding and moving with the beat. His hands rested on her hips. "And what of us, siha? Two months with no ship and no crew. Whatever shall you do with nothing to shoot?" he teased.

"I was thinking that you and I should take that desert vacation. After we visit Liara," she added.

"I look forward to it. I will stay with you as long as you will have me, siha."

"I seem to recall you saying something about looking forward to the memories. I bet we can make some pretty incredible ones if we put our minds to it."

He smirked and pulled her closer. "I have yet to see you fail at anything you set your mind to."

She grinned back. "Don't you forget it, Thane. I'm a very determined woman." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This continues the story past ME2. I'll tell you upfront that it will diverge widely from canon ME3, although the battle is still how to save the galaxy from the Reapers.
> 
> My focus is still on those little moments between crew, friends, strangers, and enemies, but due to the shifting focus of the plot, I will be exploring many more viewpoints than just Shepard's and Thane's, so that we can see what's happening around the galaxy. So this will end up being much more of an adventure story, although the romance will still be a big part of it.
> 
> I hope you're willing to stick with me through the end. I love comments and critiques, and I'd love to hear what you think might happen, or even what you hope will happen. Some comments have influenced both plot and character, so chime in!
> 
> Thanks to Orchidellia, my beta reader.


	34. The Many Guises of Fear

Thane marveled at the engineering on the Shadow Broker's ship as he followed Feron past the lightning generator panels on the outside of the ship. He had to wait until they ducked into an alcove out of the wind before he could talk. "These are amazing," he yelled over the wind.

Feron snorted as he dropped his tool bag and sorted through it. "You think that the first couple times you see it. Then when you're the one who has to go fix a broken coupling, you'd rather be inside drinking a beer than facing this wind."

Thane crouched down next to the other drell and watched as he quickly ran the diagnostics and repaired the system. "Why are you the one doing the repairs? Doesn't Liara have an engineer on board?"

"Nah," Feron shook his head. "Shepard shot 'em both last time she was here, and finding good staff has been rather a bit of a problem. Liara's down to a few guards, some housekeeping staff, Glyph and me."

"Sorry to hear that," Thane said.

"Don't be. Lash'lo was a real bastard. Loved to come and watch when the Shadow Broker had me in that cell. Only wish I could have been the one to plant a bullet in his skull." Feron's hand tightened on the tool until the skin over his knuckles turned pale blue-green, and he stared sightlessly at the readout panel for several seconds before he shook his head and finished the repair.

Thane watched quietly. This wasn't the first time he'd seen Feron overtaken by memories of torture and pain. It was obvious Feron was having difficulty getting over the last two years of torment. It was just as obvious that he wanted to ignore it and pretend it never happened. Unfortunately, drell recall made that an impossible wish.

"One more," Feron said as he picked up his tool bag and headed back to the catwalk. They walked nearly the entire length of the ship while the lightning crackled all around them, absorbed by the massive panels of the ship.

"Why didn't you go through the interior of the ship?" Thane asked when they were back out of the wind.

Feron shrugged without looking up. "Don't like walking by the guards. Each and every one of those bastards saw me in that cell. They knew the Shadow Broker was torturing me for something. Now, mysteriously, I'm the Broker's right hand man, and they don't know why. They don't like the sudden change, and I don't like them."

"How long until Liara gets some new guards and staff?"

Feron laughed mirthlessly. "Who the hell knows? She's so busy with her data streams that she's leaving everything else up to me. I've been looking around, but finding good help for this place is rough. After you guys leave, I'm heading to the Terminus systems to talk to a couple people. Hey, if you got any recommendations, I'm all ears."

Thane thought. "You could try Zaeed Massani. He's not doing anything until the Normandy is repaired, then Shepard promised him we would hunt down Vido Santiago. He's rough, but excellent in a firefight."

"Thanks, Thane. I'll check him out. Alright, we're done for today."

The two headed inside toward Liara's personal quarters. Liara and Shepard were still absorbed at the consoles, discussing economics, military and politics. Thane had never had any interest in any of those topics except as affected his immediate contracts, and lately, he had ceased following most politics except those of Kahje.

Feron wandered into the kitchen and started preparations for the evening's meal for the four of them. It was something he had done every night in the week they had been there. Thane offered to help, but Feron waved him away to sit at the table. "I like keeping busy," he said.

"I understand," was all Thane said in reply. "What will Liara do while you're in the Terminus systems? She rarely seems to emerge from her cocoon except to eat and sleep. Even Shepard was not so single minded in her focus on the Collectors."

"Beats me," Feron shrugged. "I figure I'll treat her like a pet cat. Leave some food packets out for her and tell Glyph to turn off the lights at bedtime." Feron staggered forward a step and slammed his fist down on the counter, biting his lips to keep the words inside. Still, a few slipped out. " _Lights out, little drell. Don't count on sleeping_.  _Laughter booms over the speaker as darkness falls. Pain.._." He slammed his fist down again. "Fuck!" he yelled and bent over the counter.

Thane stayed put, but he sympathized with Feron. He waited until the other drell had collected himself and started on dinner preparations again. "I can help with that," he offered quietly.

The knife in Feron's hand stilled, but he didn't turn around. "How?" he asked, low and fearful.

"Techniques taught in the Guild. Ways to deal with fear and trauma. I know you do not care for the Guild or the Compact," he started to say, but Feron waved him off.

"Right now, Thane, I'd pay through the ass for any quackery on the extranet if it promised to help me deal with this shit." Feron took a deep breath and looked over at Thane. "I don't suppose it's something easy to learn, is it?"

Thane answered with a slight shrug. "Easy enough to learn. Harder to put into practice."

"I don't care if I have to do it standing on my head reciting batarian poetry," Feron snorted.

"Tomorrow," Thane told him. "When they're busy with their plans again."

"Deal," Feron said shortly and finished up dinner.

The next morning, Thane and Feron sat on the floor in a little-used room that smelled like dust and the cleaner recently used to remove it. Thane was coaching Feron on the meditative techniques to cope with deep-seated fears. It wasn't going well.

"Damn!" Feron growled and smacked his palm down on the floor. "You said this was easy to learn."

"Everything is easy to learn for us," Thane drawled back. "It's the practice that's hard."

Feron had been trying to reach the meditative calm that was second nature to Thane, but every time he got there and tried to approach even one of the less traumatic memories, the calm dissipated in a panic.

Ever patient, Thane called a rest.

"I can't do it," Feron admitted with eyes downcast at the floor.

"You must," Thane told him, "or be forever at the mercy of the demons in your memories."

"Easy enough for you to say," Feron sneered. It was easier for him to be angry than to admit the fear that gripped him far too often every day. "You didn't spend two years of your life at the mercy of that sadistic fuck."

"No, I spent six years of my childhood being pushed to do things few other drell can ever manage, day in and day out. Including learning how to master fear and blunt the sting of unwelcome memories."

Feron was intrigued in spite of himself. He was one of the few who openly scorned the Compact, leaving Kahje at an early age to make his own fortune in the galaxy. "So what? They beat you or something?"

"Physical punishment was common for failing a task," he confirmed. "The sting of such punishment often forces you to move faster the next time, and it's less permanent than a bullet in the field."

Feron swore. "I don't know how you're still sane. It's all kinds of fucked up to take kids away from their families and raise them up to be killers."

"That's an alien sentiment, Feron," Thane rebuked calmly.

"Yeah, well, sometimes the aliens get it right."

Thane let out a barely perceptible sigh. "Do you wish to continue?"

Feron drummed his fingers on the metal floor. "Yeah, it's just..." Thane waited, and as expected, Feron spoke to fill the silence. "When I'm all still, just the first thought of what happened triggers every bad memory there is. The silence seems to make it worse."

"Perhaps you simply lack sufficient motivation to quell the fear," Thane suggested.

Feron huffed out a laugh. "Please. I've got ass loads of motivation. I'm sick of feeling this way."

Thane simply raised one eyebrow ridge in challenge.

"Well what the hell do you suggest then, Thane?" Feron snarled.

"Here, on Liara's ship, you are safe. You can allow the memories to overtake you, but nothing truly harmful will happen to you. That will not be the case when you travel to the Terminus systems. You know there will be people there quick to capitalize on any weakness." Feron frowned and looked away. "You need to understand that, to feel the truth of it in your innermost being. You need to know that if you do not conquer your fear, it will be your death," Thane finished flatly.

Feron stared at the assassin for a long moment. "What was your fear, Thane?"

Now it was his turn to look away. "Drowning."

Feron waited, but Thane was used to the quiet. Finally Feron asked him, "Why?"

Thane took a deep breath. This was an old memory, one of the first he had successfully neutralized, so he didn't fall into solipsism as he spoke. "There was a girl, Reyyid. We were both eight, both slated to become assassins. She was better than me at almost everything - weapons, hand to hand, running."

He looked up to see Feron listening attentively. "There was a test. One of any number, but this one involved holding our breath underwater. The instructors would hold us down until our lungs began to fail. Then they would keep us underwater. It was a lesson to relax in the face of terror, to master our bodies instead of letting them master us. The instructors weren't perfect, though. One of them held Reyyid underwater too long. They tried to resuscitate her but couldn't. Our entire class watched her die. The instructors then said they would repeat the test the next day, and they would add time. We would master our fears, or we would drown."

"Fuck, Thane," Feron muttered.

Thane ignored him. "That night, I did exactly what I'm teaching you here. I calmed myself and thought of Reyyid's death. Then I thought of being held underwater against my will until my lungs were burning, until I thought I might drown. I imagined drowning."

"What happened?"

"Two more died the next day. It was an abject lesson in mastering your fear," Thane told him. "You learn, or you die. You need to know that the same fate awaits you if you cannot master your fears."

"Kalahira take them," Feron muttered. "That is exactly the kind of shit I'm talking about when I say the Compact is rotten."

Thane held up a hand. "Enough, Feron. It is in the past. I'm offering you a way to overcome your fears, but you must do the work. I can vouch for its effectiveness," he finished dryly.

Feron looked troubled but he nodded and took a deep breath.

"Imagine your own death," Thane told him. "That might actually be easier, since it hasn't happened yet." Feron cracked open an eye to see if Thane was fooling him, but he grimaced when the assassin looked completely serious.

"You are one twisted fucker, Thane."

* * *

Shepard stepped out of the rented house onto the pool deck and immediately started to sweat. Liara had found a marvelous hidden gem of a resort in the desert, and Feron had dropped them off before heading to the Terminus systems on whatever secretive task Liara had for him. It felt strange to be without the Normandy at her beck and call, to have an entire house with only herself and Thane to fill it up, but she forced herself to relax.

She stopped under the sunshade to gaze at her lover. He practically glowed, emerald and onyx, a life-size statue made from precious stones. The heat and sun were agreeing with him, and the dry air made it easier for him to breathe. Right now, he was lounging naked on a couch in the full sun. She winced just thinking of being out there that long. Being a lifelong spacer, she rarely spent significant time planetside, and when she did, it was usually indoors. Her ancestry gave her fair skin, and she'd discovered painfully that the sun did not agree with her. Her first week here had been spent moping indoors recovering from a blistering sunburn that left her peeling in spite of judicious medigel applications. Now she limited her time in the sun to early morning and late evening, but Thane could rarely be dragged inside.

It was late enough in the afternoon that the sun was no longer brutal, but the heat of the day radiated back up from the pool deck. Unlike him, she still didn't feel comfortable going naked, even if there were no other residences visible, but the bikini she had on didn't leave much to the imagination. She put on her sunglasses and braved the sun to lie down at Thane's side. His scales were hot to the touch. Teasingly, she licked her finger and touched him while making a sizzling sound. "Aren't you cooked yet?"

Without opening his eyes, he made a contented hum deep in his chest and pulled her close to him. "I find the heat delightful. It's nice not to feel so cold all the time."

She lay next to him and soaked up the heat until sweat covered her entire body and the sapphire water of the pool looked too tempting to ignore. "I'm getting in the pool," she said as she pushed up and walked away.

Thane reluctantly let her go, watching as she hopped into the shallow end. "Are you ready for your swimming lesson, siha?" He'd been after her to learn to swim since they got here.

She splashed water at him and laughed. "Why bother? It's not like there are a lot of swimming pools in space, you know."

He rose and followed her to the water's edge, his movements graceful and predatory. He was so damn sexy even in the way he walked, but she could tell he was hunting her now, and that sent a thrill through her. "Be prepared for all eventualities. Isn't that your motto?"

She backed away from the edge, daring him to come after her with a twinkle in her eye. "I have to prioritize. I don't think I'll be fighting Reapers in the swimming pool."

He slinked around the edge of the pool, following her. "But I know how much you've been missing a good fight," he drawled. "Strategizing over email is hardly the sort of thing that gets your heart pumping, is it, siha?"

"No, but there are plenty of other ways to get my heart pumping," she said with a wicked smile. The sun highlighted the hard planes of his chest and shoulders. In the bright sunlight he kept his thin inner eyelids closed for protection giving his eyes an unusual milky sheen.

"Indeed. I think I might know of one or two," he replied. Suddenly he arced into a shallow dive, surfacing right next to her. Even though she was waiting on him, he was faster. He grabbed her around the waist and dunked her. She sputtered to the surface and pushed her wet hair out of her eyes.

"Oh, it's on, Krios," she laughed and splashed him back. She leapt out of the water and attempted to dunk him the same way, but he was too firmly planted to the pool bottom for her to pull him backwards. Instead, she crawled onto his back and locked her legs around his waist and hugged his chest. "Got you!" she crowed.

He only laughed as he simply fell backward in the water, causing her to shriek in surprise and flounder to the surface again. "I grew up on an ocean planet, siha. You really think to best me in a pool?"

"Pool, bed, wherever. I'm game," she laughed as she launched herself up out of the water and hugged his chest with legs around his waist again. She couldn't recall ever being this free and happy.

Her hair was a wet, tangled mess, and he threaded his hand through it, pulling her head back so he could kiss her neck. She let her moans of pleasure sound freely, knowing how he liked feeling the vibrations coming from her neck. "Why do you persist in wearing clothing that you know I will only remove as soon as possible?" he murmured against her neck as he untied the knot to her top.

"Maybe because I like it when you take it off of me," she said, still looking up at the sky. The two tiny triangles floated away, and he arched her back so that he could take her nipple in his mouth. The heat of the day was as nothing compared to the heat inside her as he switched from one to the other. She could feel him hardening against her leg as she wantonly rolled her hips against his.

His hand stroked down her side to the tie at her hip. She had finally found out, from Thane, not Mordin's pamphlets, that drell males were drawn to curvy hips as a primary sexual characteristic in women. That was the main reason she chose this bikini. It had bright blue strings that tied the front and back together at her hips, and she'd noticed him watching her in it earlier. She hoped it was the equivalent of a push up bra for drell. He toyed with the string, and very slowly pulled it loose. Soon, her bikini bottom was floating loose in the pool as well.

She could hear his rumbling arousal as he pressed against her. She wished she could hear the full range of sounds he was making, because what she could hear was incredibly sexy. The hand at her hips migrated between their bodies to tease and test. She sighed in pure pleasure at the touch of his skilled fingers on the places he knew she loved best.

Suddenly he tensed and then doubled over coughing. She slipped from his hands, splashing them both. "Thane?" His coughing had become worse over the last couple weeks. He was wheezing and struggling to get a deep breath. "I'll get the bag," she told him as she heaved herself out of the pool and ran inside.

Feron had given Thane an extensive medical kit to deal with the increasing symptoms of his disease. He'd been blunt as he described the contents to her outside of Thane's hearing. It wasn't what she wanted to hear, but the universe rarely gave her what she wanted. She snatched it from their bedroom and ran back to the pool. Thane had his hands braced against the side of the pool and was bent over in obvious distress, trying and failing to draw enough air into his thickening lungs.

Shepard swore as she tore through the bag looking for the injector that would ease his breathing. Finding it, she jabbed his shoulder, then jumped back in the water to rub his back. She thought about trying to lift him from the pool, but he was pure, heavy muscle, and she was afraid she'd trigger a worse attack trying to wrestle him out.

Just before they landed at the Citadel, Dr. Chakwas had sent her a private report that detailed his sudden downturn following the fight through the Collector's base. Something in there, some dust or particulate, had been especially inflammatory to his system. It had caused a noticeable decrease in his lung capacity and triggered these frequent coughing fits as his body fought to expel the foreign material. Unfortunately, the mucus buildup in his lungs made it nearly impossible for his body to clear itself.

The medicine worked quickly, and Thane sagged against the pool deck. She wrapped her arms around him and hugged gently as she pressed her cheek against his back. She tried so hard to ignore the symptoms of his disease and its inevitable implication, but it was getting harder to do so.

After a moment, Thane turned around and hugged her to him. "I'm sorry for causing you distress, siha," he said as his thumb erased a droplet of water from her eye. She told herself it was just water from the pool.

"Don't be sorry, Thane," she said automatically as she stared blindly at the stripes on his chest.

He sighed heavily, one of the few times he allowed himself to express his sadness to her. Usually, he hid his feelings about his disease as much as she pretended he wasn't ill. "Siha, look at me," he said as he lifted her chin. "You must accept the fact that I am dying. You cannot pin your hopes on Mordin coming up with a cure."

"The hell I can't," she muttered rebelliously.

"Death is a natural part of life. You are a soldier. You know this."

"This is different," she said. "You know, for all the death and destruction I've seen...or caused...it's never been personal like this." She gazed off into the horizon. Thane waited for her to continue. "I've been lucky, I guess. Nice, normal life. Not like some of my contemporaries. I grew up with my brother and my parents. I got to visit my grandparents on Earth a couple times, and they spoiled me rotten. Even when my parents split up, my dad was still only a vid call away. I've lost friends, and I've lost crew. But I've never lost family and it makes me afraid. I've never lost someone I loved with all my heart," she finished with a tear spilling out of her eye.

He folded her close and crooned comfortingly. "I will not lie to you, siha. It is terrible. And sometimes it can feel as if there is no reason to go on, but you must. You must find other reasons to live. And know that I will be with you in spirit until you come to me across the sea."

"You said you'd fight to stay with me," she said with her sorrow turning abruptly to anger as she pounded his shoulder. "Now it sounds like you're giving up."

He shook his head and crooned that comforting hum she had become too familiar with recently. "Not at all. I'm doing everything Mordin and Dr. Chakwas have ordered, but we must also face facts. My time is running out, siha," he said with a hitch in his voice.

She buried her face against his chest, and safe in the knowledge that he couldn't see her, she let the tears go. "I can't accept that. Not now. Not after we survived the Collector's base," she whispered.

"You can, and you will," he said firmly. "You have family still living. You have friends who have become as close as family. There are friends and loved ones you have yet to meet. Perhaps, someday, you may even have children. For their sake, you must live."

"How can you be so calm about it?" she cried.

"I've had a lot of practice," he said with a wry, crooked smile.

She cursed the universe, then. Cursed the gods, if any existed, who would bring her something so wonderful, and take it away so soon. It felt better than cursing impersonal random chance. She could understand why it was comforting to have gods.

"Come," he said as he urged her to get out. "You've had enough sun for now. Don't mourn me yet, siha. I have plenty of life left to live, and I intend to prove it to you." His hands moved to cause her to gasp. He took her to their bedroom and gave her many more reasons to gasp and moan and call his name until the melancholy was replaced with ecstasy and satisfaction.

* * *

In the light of a dying red star, Jack Harper stared pensively at the multitude of screens in front of him. He wasn't worried. Not yet, he told himself. There were a few things that weren't going according to plan, that's all.

His biggest worry...no, concern, was Shepard. She'd made her report to the Council, and then simply disappeared the next day. He didn't like surprises, and he knew she was plotting her own course, trying to use him and his resources for her own purposes.

He had placed Jacob on her crew to take the place of Kaidan Alenko, the Alliance soldier she'd fallen for before her death. Jacob had been chosen primarily for his similarity to Alenko: former Alliance, biotic, handsome, non-threatening. Harper wasn't too upset when the chemistry between the two failed to gel; it had been a long shot. But he had been surprised when Miranda told him of Shepard's growing attraction to the assassin. Still, the drell was dying, so that problem would take care of itself soon. He only hoped she wasn't getting too attached to Krios.

He dismissed that concern for later. He was more concerned with Miranda. It was obvious from her reports that she had grown to respect and like Shepard a great deal. It was putting a strain on her loyalty to Cerberus, and that could pose a problem if Shepard didn't play along. He dialed up a screen with information on her sister, then arranged for one of his agents to keep track of Oriana's every movement with orders to be ready to take her into custody at a moment's notice. He believed in being prepared for every contingency.

He brought up another screen, this one dealing with one of his business ventures in the Terminus systems. The company's president had made some spectacularly bad decisions in the last week, resulting in the company's share price plummeting. Another company had moved in before he was aware of it and purchased a controlling ownership. He wasn't able to track down the source of the hostile takeover yet, but he could deal with the president. Failure to perform for Cerberus was met with harsh and permanent consequences.

Another screen, this time to send an email to the Alliance diplomatic corps and his contact there. The cost of Udina's loyalty was affordable, but the man himself was not a great diplomat. He simply happened to be in the right place when the Alliance was granted a Council seat. It was time to arrange for someone with better diplomacy skills to take Udina's position. He couldn't afford to let his deep connections be seen too soon, but he had to balance it against the threat of the Reapers.

He pulled another cigarette out of its case and lit up. The smoke calmed his mind, and he gazed out at the spectacular sight in front of him. For now, he was forced to play a waiting game, and he spared a thought to curse Shepard for not handing over the Reaper IFF immediately. He needed to get through the Omega 4 relay and start exploring the Collector base. His labs and researchers were poised to continue with the research they had started with Collector technology. If he could just get his hands on the actual Reaper technology, he was sure he would be able to turn the tide in humanity's favor.

It was seventeen hundred, and there was a lovely young woman waiting for him in his private quarters. Everything in its proper time.

* * *

Koylat's heart thudded in his chest. Hama was going to get them killed, he was sure of it. No, he amended. She was just going to get him killed while she hid safely in the shadows. He wasn't used to climbing through catwalks and girders. Not for the first time was he wondering if he had done the right thing agreeing to help Milar, but as usual, his thoughts circled around, and he knew that he couldn't have made any other decision.

They had followed Poourdmet down to Tayseri Ward where it was meeting with a hanar shopkeeper who dealt in trinkets and oddities. For the life of him, he couldn't figure out why it was here. He watched the two talk, the flashing going so fast it was hard to keep up. He'd had the eye surgery a few weeks ago, but he was discovering that it was still hard to translate colors he'd never seen before into words that made sense.

Poourdmet concluded its meeting and turned to go, but instead of heading back to the Presidium, it turned and floated right underneath Kolyat, who was trying to blend into the shadows of the high ceiling. He cursed fluently and silently while doing his best to pretend to be a conduit. Hanar had evolved in a three dimensional water environment, and unlike most other species, did not typically ignore things above them.

He let his breath out slowly as the hanar floated past. Both Hama and his father had tried teaching him basic infiltration skills, but Kolyat knew he wasn't cut out for that. He'd rather circle his problems from a distance, studying them and picking them apart until he could figure out where the weak spots were. He jerked and grabbed the nearest conduit pipe when Hama suddenly appeared next to him. "Give me some warning before you do that," he muttered.

"Sorry," she said contritely. "If it's any consolation, I'm pretty sure it didn't see you. Did you figure out what it was talking about?"

He shook his head. "Just asking about shipping schedules and tariffs. I don't even know why it's slumming down here."

Hama tugged his shirt sleeve. "Me, either, but it's the first time it's left the Presidium in a month. Come on, let's see where else it stops."

Kolyat followed Hama as best he could, but she slipped fluidly through the tangle of girders and cables while he seemed to get caught on every one. They followed the hanar through the Ward, staying well back. After passing five blocks, another hanar floated up next to it. He wasn't close enough to hear, but if the hanar had their voice modulators turned off, they were almost certainly guaranteed privacy. Very few outside of other hanar and a very few drell could interpret their visual language.

They were discussing the delivery date for something, but Kolyat didn't know the words yet.

"What did it say?" She asked as it floated off past where they could easily follow it. He knew she was beyond annoyed that her mother had refused to allow her to get the eye surgery that would let her see the full range of hanar speech.

He shrugged in frustration. "Something about an item acting oddly. I don't know all the words yet," he growled. "Maybe it was a person or something valuable. I can't tell. It also said the time was close. Before you ask, no it didn't say time for what. It's waiting for a message from Traverses Heavenly Deeps."

Hama snorted. "That's not much help, unless Mom knows more hanar soul names than she's said."

They made their way back to street level and headed to the nearest shop for a pretext for their excursion. Kolyat watched Hama as she wandered along looking at clothes. It was hard to believe that he had grown as attached to her as he had. They hung out nearly every day when he wasn't on duty, and he admitted to himself that he liked her bubbly company. She had dragged him out of his shell and introduced him to her other friends. They were all misfits in one way or another, but they all found something kindred in each other.

He slipped up behind her and hooked one arm around her waist. He grinned wickedly at her gasp of surprise. He might not be as stealthy as his father but he wasn't a complete klutz. "We've done enough work for today. Let's catch a movie," he whispered in her ear.

"Is that all?"

He raised an eyebrow ridge. "What did you have in mind?"

She laughed and tickled his neck. "Catch me instead," she challenged as she slipped from his grasp and darted out into the walkway.

Kolyat half laughed, half groaned, but he didn't waste any time chasing after her. He was getting better. He vowed she wouldn't get away from him today.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to Orchidellia, my beta reader who keeps me honest and makes my writing so much better.


	35. Opening Gambits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joker and EDI go up against the turian fleet, and Kolyat learns about his past.

Joker winced as Shepard clapped down on his shoulder. He knew she meant well, but she always forgot her own strength. Maybe that was okay for some of the other crazy masochists and killers on board, but he preferred to think of himself as a delicate flower. Maybe a little less delicate after the Cerberus operations to harden his bones, but still not up to the general physicality the rest of Shepard's crew liked to exhibit. "I'm counting on you and EDI, Joker. Time to prove you're the best damn pilot in the galaxy."

"You owe me a bottle of champagne after this, Shepard. Make it a bottle of the good stuff, from France. Actually, make it five bottles, one for each ship."

"You think I'm made of money, Joker?"

"Hell, yeah. I know what you and Liara've been getting up to. Besides, this was only supposed to be three to one. How'd you let them talk you into five to one?" he groused as he flicked through screens so rapidly he knew she couldn't keep up.

"It's all your fault," she told him. "You're the one who said three to one was no challenge. Admiral Avedius was being difficult until I upped the odds." Joker snorted in disbelief. "You win this battle, Joker, you give the galaxy a fighting chance against the Reapers."

He laughed sharply without looking up from his screens. "Thanks a lot, Shepard. Nothing like a little pressure to help a man perform, you know."

She squeezed again, and Joker tried to move his shoulder out of her grasp. "Shouldn't you be headed in to watch the show, Shepard?" Thankfully she stepped back.

"Yeah, I guess. Good luck, guys, and tear 'em up."

Joker couldn't say he relaxed when she headed into the airlock, but he certainly didn't need a back seat audience during this test. Okay, so he might have bragged that he and EDI could take out three turian warships without problem, but that might have been after a couple of beers. Five turian warships were going to be a real struggle. But Shepard had negotiated a pretty sweet prize. If he and EDI could demonstrate the superiority of an AI and a human pilot in the SR2 with its upgrades, the turian Hierarchy had agreed to start production of modified SR2s to fight the Reaper invasion. Even more surprisingly, they would go against galactic convention and integrate AIs into each of them, as well as consider retrofitting AIs into their existing ships. EDI would serve as the mother, of sorts, to the new AIs, but it all hinged on this test.

"Ready, EDI?"

"All systems functional, Jeff. I am as ready as I'll ever be." EDI sounded like she was actually excited about the upcoming battle.

"How about you, Garrus?"

"Let's go show 'em what we can do, Joker," came the gruff response from the Main Battery. Garrus had refused to leave during the test. He claimed he was owed some fun after Shepard had sent him to deal with politicians for the last three months. Otherwise, the ship was empty. It was part of the test for the turians - proof that a warship crewed only by a pilot, an AI and a gunnery officer could defeat five fully crewed ships.

"Alright, girl, let's head out." EDI disengaged the docking clamps from the space station and they headed out to the asteroid belt. Joker's hands flew over the haptic interfaces, pulling and discarding screen after screen of information. Weapons at quarter strength, stealth systems engaged, Tantalus core humming nicely. He stretched his fingers wide and let his senses flow out into the ship and further out into space as they glided through the asteroid belt.

The belt near Aephus was much denser than the one he'd practiced in around Sol. Here, you could actually run into a sizeable chunk of former planet, and plowing through the dust would cause it to heat up and give away their location, even with their stealth systems engaged. But it was still worth it for the chance to play hide and seek with the turians. An unconscious grin lit up his face. This was going to be fun.

The only saving grace was that the rules of engagement stated that there would never be more than three ships facing the Normandy at any one time, so it wasn't quite five against one from the start, but this would make for a long, grueling battle.

"Jeff, I have identified an anomalous heat signature. It matches the Æsgear."

"Got it, EDI. Let's circle around behind her, nice and steady. Don't want to leave a heat trail."

"Jeff, I believe there is a sixty-five percent chance that the Æsgear is deliberately leaking heat to draw us in."

"Bait, huh? Yeah, I think you're right. Doubtful the turians would send out a ship with a known flaw into a test like this. Let's see...where would you hide if you wanted to jump us?" His eyes flickered between screens. "There. See the grav shadow of that big asteroid?" He kept looking. "The turians won't bet everything on one ship. They like redundancy, especially in their killing. Isn't that right, Garrus?"

"Did you pick up a copy of the Hierarchy basic training handbook, Joker?" came the wry response. "Check the L4 and L5 points on that asteroid."

"Yeah, but would they put the ships so close together? Because that sounds a little...I don't know...stupid."

"They don't know the power of this cannon, even at quarter strength," Garrus said with a rich laugh. "If you can move fast enough, we can shove the asteroid against the third ship, if it's there, take out the first lurker and disappear again."

"Oh, I'm fast enough," Joker bragged as he plotted a long, sweeping arc to put them in position. He felt himself tensing up as they approached the zero point and willed himself to relax. "Best damn pilot in the galaxy," he muttered to himself.

He watched the seconds count down, knowing Garrus was seeing the same clock a deck below. "Showtime," he whispered as everything dissolved into chaos.

He whooped with delight as the cannon shoved the asteroid, and his chuckle was downright evil as the third warship they suspected was there was forced to move out of the way, giving away its position as it did so. Garrus fired again, and even at a quarter strength, it was enough to get past the shielding and cause enough damage that the VI running the simulation ruled the ship a total loss. EDI handled the artillery attack on the first lurker. Together, they worked as a seamless team and hammered the second ship until the VI ruled it a loss as well.

"Jeff, the Æsgear has disappeared completely."

"Yeah, looks like you were right about the fake heat leak, EDI. Alright, let's disappear ourselves." Joker engaged the stealth systems and crept into the shadow of another asteroid. Suddenly another turian frigate uncloaked in the distance. "Guess they want to get this over with fast. Think it's another trap, EDI?"

"There is not enough data to safely speculate, Jeff, although I would advise caution when approaching."

"Ya think?" he said sarcastically as he plotted a new stealth course to approach from the frigate's underside. "There! See it EDI?" It was just a flash of heat, but EDI verified his hunch.

"It's the Æsgear again, Jeff."

"Huh. Wonder if it really does have a leaky heat shield. Garrus, ready to light it up in twenty."

"Confirmed, Joker."

This time, the battle between the Normandy and the two enemy ships was much longer. The Æsgear dodged and was only partially scorched by the Thanix, and Joker and EDI had to pull out every trick they'd developed over the last year. They'd just put the Æsgear out of commission, and the second frigate had been seriously damaged when a turian cruiser arrived on scene.

"Ah, crap. They didn't say they were sending a cruiser out. Garrus, better hold on to your butt!" The cruiser was much larger with heavier plating than the frigates. It also had much heavier guns than the turian frigates, but between Joker's piloting and the heavier shielding, they were shrugging off most of the damage.

Joker brought the Normandy screaming in for a shot on the last frigate. "Garrus, go!" The Thanix lit up the intervening space, scoring a direct hit and causing the VI to shut down the nav and weapon systems. Now only the cruiser remained.

"You think your cannon can get through that cruiser, Garrus?"

"There's no need, Jeff" EDI interjected.

"Um, EDI, unless you forgot, we're kinda supposed to beat all the turian ships to win this thing," Joker said absently as his hands danced over the controls, sending the Normandy arcing and accelerating around the cruiser.

"We don't need to shoot them if I can disable their systems. Like that," she finished as the turian cruiser suddenly stopped firing and started to drift off course.

"Damn, girl! How'd you do that?" Joker checked to make sure his jaw wasn't hanging open.

"I am programmed to carry out electronic warfare. I have been analyzing the turian security systems since we arrived seven point three hours ago. They have a serious security flaw in their mass balancing systems, and I piggybacked onto that to disable their weapons and engines. I left the communications operational, however, and have informed them both of the security flaw and how to correct it."

"EDI, does that mean you could have taken out all five ships before we even started?" Joker asked in astonishment.

"Perhaps," she answered. If he didn't know better, he'd swear her voice was smug and her hologram pulsed just a little brighter. "But the turians needed to know how effective the combination of an AI and organic pilot are, in addition to the other capabilities of the Normandy. Disabling all their systems at the beginning would have negated the entire purpose of the test."

"Woo hoo!" Joker pumped his fist in the air. "Shepard owes us big. Too bad you don't drink, EDI. I hear French champagne is the shit!" EDI's hologram pulsed and Joker held out his hand. "Just don't even ask, EDI." He laughed and spun his chair around. "Man, that was fun!" He only hoped Shepard was having as much fun sticking it to the turian Hierarchy.

* * *

Kolyat escorted Hama home after a night of dinner and dancing with their friends. He hoped they were coming in late enough that Milar would be asleep, but as they entered the apartment, he saw he had no such luck. She had changed into casual clothes and was lounging on one of the luxurious couches reading a data pad.

"Good evening," she said to the pair. "Kolyat, can you stick around for a bit?"

Hama gave him a wink that her mother couldn't see. "Tomorrow," she mouthed. "Good night, mama," she said, giving her mother a kiss before heading to her bedroom. It was a common enough occurrence for Milar to debrief Kolyat or give him another assignment, that Hama and Kolyat went to their respective places - Hama to bed and Kolyat sinking down into the plush armchair across from Milar.

She set her data pad down next to her and looked at Kolyat with that same unsettling calm that his father used. He hated it, but he was used to it by now and stayed relaxed under her scrutiny. "What do you think of the Compact, Kolyat?"

He shrugged carelessly, although he chose his words with care to not give away his true feelings through his subvocals. "I think you know my feelings."

She smiled mysteriously. "I do, but I want to hear a little more. Why do you feel that way?"

Now he frowned. "I don't want to make you mad."

She laughed softly. "I don't think there's anything you say that can make me mad, Kolyat. I've heard it all. I've defended against everything you can possibly come up with. I have my reasons. Humor me."

His lips twisted in annoyance before he could stop himself. "What do you want me to say? It's wrong for the government to take kids away from their families in order to turn them into killers...and spies...for the state."

"But, Kolyat, every government ever in existence has done exactly that. It's only the matter of degree. Humans select young adults to be in their military, and I can guarantee you that they further select some of those as assassins, spies, and bodyguards. Every turian who wants to be considered an adult must perform military and civic duty for at least four years. The Compact is not so different. We select only a tiny fraction of drell and train them to a level that's unheard of among the other races. That is the trade-off we have made. Your grandparents' sacrifice of your father allowed countless other drell to focus on areas such as science, technology, and art. Considering our society as a whole, is that so bad?"

Koylat stared directly back at her. "I know what you're getting at. But you asked what I thought about the Compact, and from my perspective, it's been nothing but ruin. What did it serve to send my father out to kill people? It might have made things easier for the hanar that were in power at the time, but is that a good enough reason? I say no. They were too cowardly or lazy to take a more public way to deal with their problems." He heard the hard edge in his voice and forced himself to relax back into the chair.

Milar's answer was a raised eyebrow ridge. "How can you still be so idealistic about the nature of governments, Kolyat? Individuals will always look for the easiest way to resolve problems, especially if it results in them retaining or increasing their personal power or authority."

Kolyat shrugged. "Just because it's easy doesn't make it right. Someone has to stand up and point that out. I think the majority of people would agree with me."

Milar sighed. "I think the majority of people are too concerned with their own personal affairs to bother with what happens in some distant city, let alone another world. The asari and turians have a different outlook, and there's a reason the majority of C-sec is staffed with turians. I know you saw corruption there, but it is much less than it could have been with, say, more humans or salarians involved. We have our strictures of honor, but too many of us have fallen away from the worship and guidance of the old gods, and I have seen nothing comparable to replace it."

"You don't agree with worshipping the Enkindlers?" he asked.

She laughed softly. "Why should we worship ancestors? The Enkindlers were nothing more than a race that came before our own, for all the good it did them. Besides, the drell evolved on Rakhana, as did our gods. It makes no sense to worship the gods of an alien race. But I did not mean to ask you about religion, Kolyat, but about the Compact. What do you actually know of it? How much has your father told you?"

"Bits and pieces," Kolyat answered. "He told me about some of his training exercises, interactions with the other trainees." He didn't mention that Thane had obviously censored some of the stories, probably out of some misplaced sense of protection for his feelings. He had struggled not to point out to his father that he was no longer ten years old.

"What do you think would happen if the Compact no longer existed?" she asked.

Kolyat and Hama had actually talked about that, in one of their many idle chats. "Depends on why it went away. Who's responsible for dissolving it? Hanar or drell?"

She quirked her lips up, amused at his question. "Assume drell."

He tilted his head to the side as he thought. "If it was dissolved due to pressure from the drell, it would have to be because something happened that caused the population as a whole to turn against it. Given the prestige that it currently has in our society, it would have to be something big." He paused to see if Milar would disagree, but she was simply watching him. "We'd still have no place else to live, so if the dissolution was antagonistic, it could cause a lot of problems if the hanar decided to kick us off Kahje. I don't think we'd want to be another quarian race."

She nodded her head. "Just so."

Kolyat dropped his head onto the back of his chair and felt a blanket of despondency settle over him. "So the Compact is never going to disappear. Not until Rakhana is terraformed and fit for habitation again."

"Well, it's an interesting thought experiment. Who knows what will happen in the future. If Shepard's Reapers show up, everything will change." Milar said. She tossed him a data disc that he caught reflexively. "Don't tell Hama I gave you this."

"What is it?" Kolyat held it like it might explode. Milar gave him the strangest things sometimes.

"Your history." She smiled pensively at the shocked expression on his face. "Think before you open it, Kolyat. Once you read it, you can't unknow it. You may find information in there that you wish you hadn't known."

Well, that wasn't reassuring at all, he thought as he looked at the disc. "Then why give it to me?"

"Because I think you will stand at a nexus, Kolyat. You may be a fulcrum for the future. If so, you need to be prepared."

"And knowing my 'history' will prepare me?" he asked, still confused.

"There's more than is initially apparent. Once you start pulling on a thread, you may unravel the entire cloth."

Later, in his apartment, Kolyat growled to himself as he stared at the data disc. She had to have known that he couldn't resist reading what was on here, no matter how dire and mysterious her warnings were. So the question really was, why did she give it to him? What could be so important about his history that it would affect his future, let alone anyone else's?

He grimaced as he slid it into the reader, not knowing what to expect. What he found were the unlocked files he and Hama had tried to read at the embassy party where Shepard had attended.

They read like something from a spy thriller. It took most of the night, but he pieced together the story from emails, logs, and debriefing reports. He started where he left off, reading the story about how his father discovered a discrepancy in Guild orders. Thane pulled in a favor and ended up stumbling on an assassination order for the First Singer that came from a fringe group in the hanar. He had ignored recall orders and tracked down the other assassin over the course of ten days. It ended with a one on one fight in the gallery while the First Singer spoke below. He whistled out loud when he turned to the medical report. The fight had been brutal, as one should expect between two Compact-trained assassins. It looked like his father had been on the verge of death himself afterward.

He flipped back and forth through the files until he found one thread from the Guild's psychological evaluation. It noted how his father had been displaying deviations from expected norms both in and out of service and identified the cause as his recent association with a young woman - his mother. Kolyat followed the new trail back and found the report detailing his father's failed assassination attempt. He'd heard the story from both parents, each with their own version. But here was the clinical report in all its bare, ugly facts.

After the failure, Thane refused to report back to the Guild hall, ignoring repeated calls from the mission handlers. He not only didn't return, he disappeared, using all his considerable skills in stealth and avoidance. When he finally returned, four days later, his report was so bare bones as to make his handlers think he was lying, but every test they conducted showed that wasn't the case. All he would say was that a civilian interfered with his shot. When queried about his disappearance, he would only say that he needed time to deal with his unaccustomed failure.

Curious, he turned to the assassination order, but it was still encrypted. He frowned and explored the disc more, finding entire hidden subdirectories that were encrypted. Why would Milar give him this disc, and then keep most of the data locked up? Noting it as one more mystery to solve, he returned to the story of his parents.

Apparently, Thane had visited Irikah quite often after that failed assassination attempt. The Guild had put a tracker on him, trying to find out why he kept disappearing from the Guild hall. It wasn't against the rules for a working assassin, but it did mark an abrupt behavior change, and Compact assets were valuable enough that each one was monitored closely. He wondered if the same held true for Milar.

Finally they found the woman he had been seeing, and Kolyat found the psychological profile on his mother: deeply religious and dedicated to the old gods of Rakhana, a beginning student of medicine, and living with a single roommate. Well read, intelligent and inquisitive, the report read. Also had an older sister initiated into the Compact who died in training. That incident turned her mother against the Compact, and that feeling apparently transmitted itself to Irikah. Kolyat felt a sudden chill down his spine. He'd never heard of this aunt, and suddenly, much of his mother's antagonism for the Compact gained a new clarity.

Another report, a couple of months later, noted that Thane had begun reading and studying religious texts, not just of the drell, but of the asari and turians. He was regularly seeing Irikah, and even though he had not failed any other missions, one of his handlers noted a new air of distraction and related it to his association with the young woman. There was a link to another file, and when Kolyat read it, he felt his blood run cold, and he understood suddenly what Milar had meant when she said he couldn't unknow what he read.

There was a frank and clinical discussion of the need to get Thane back on track as one of the Compact's most accomplished and valuable assassins, and the analyst stated that his continued association with Irikah would potentially lead to Thane questioning his role and eventually asking to leave the Compact. The analyst stated that the best way to keep Thane in the Compact was to assassinate Irikah in such a way as to mimic a natural or accidental death. Thane could have no suspicion that the Compact was involved in any way. It should also have the benefit of discouraging him from seeking out further liaisons in the future.

There was a time gap of nearly three months before an addendum was filed. It noted that Thane had begun a physical relationship with Irikah and that she was now pregnant. If the Compact killed her now, there was a near certainty that Thane would either leave the Compact in grief or become too unstable to continue working. The report concluded that Thane was now a lost asset, and the potential for negative publicity outweighed the possibility of keeping him in the Compact.

It was nearly two years later when the Compact noted that Thane Krios had begun freelancing after a series of low paying, menial labor jobs. That led Kolyat into a list of contracts the hanar had made with Thane over the years. Out of morbid curiosity, he opened one at random. His eyes nearly bugged out of his head when he saw the contract price. It was an order of magnitude more than he could expect for his entire three years of work for the embassy. And that was for a single job that took him three months to complete.

His mind was whirling in a mish mash of random thoughts as he searched randomly through the files. Suddenly he found his own name. Thinking it would be about his service to the embassy, or more likely and embarrassingly about his own failed assassination attempt, he opened it. Instead he saw another Compact report talking about recruiting him in hopes that Thane's genetic and biotic potential would flow down to his son. He saw that the offer had been soundly rebuffed by both his parents, going against tradition in drell society.

He slumped back in his chair. Neither of his parents had ever told him that the hanar wanted to recruit him. He shuddered as he thought that he could very well be following in his father's footsteps now, just as uncaring about family as his father was. He snorted in derision at himself. No more lies, even to himself. Thane did care. He knew that now. He also saw how the Compact did its best to purge any emotion or familial ties from their 'assets'. Gods, how he hated that term. He wondered how common it was for Compact drell to have families. He tried looking through the files, but every time he thought he found something, it led to another encrypted file.

His alarm beeped, telling him it was time to get up and get ready for work. He'd been awake all night, pouring through the data on Milar's disc. He sighed and sent a note to his supervisor saying he was taking the day off.

He pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes as he thought through everything he had read. Like most everyone else on Kahje, he'd not thought too deeply into the details of the Compact. It was just this shadowy group that you knew about, but never heard about. Now he was beginning to see how powerful and deeply integrated into the power structure of hanar and drell society it was.

He asked himself again why Milar gave this to him. Did it change how he viewed the Compact? No, but it solidified what he hated most about it, and more importantly, it gave him data and documents that were potentially very damaging to the existing power structure. The encrypted files bugged him no end. He knew they had to hold valuable information, but obviously Milar didn't want him to read them yet. It was a test, he decided. He wasn't to tell Hama, even though she could decrypt it much faster than he could. So maybe Milar wanted him to learn decryption. Or it was a test to see if he would follow her directions and keep a secret from Hama. He could see layers upon layers of misdirection, control and outright lies.

He laughed out loud, the sound full of angry sarcasm. And to think, he and Hama had even dared to dream about getting rid of the Compact. Might as well fill the Council with only humans. It sounded just as likely.

He dragged himself wearily off the couch and headed to the fresher unit. He set his privacy settings such that even Hama knew not to bother him while it was on, then collapsed into his bed. Over and over, his mind plucked at the various threads on the data disc, trying to discern Milar's hidden messages as well as figure out what all that history meant for him, or if it would matter to anyone else.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Orchidellia, my beta reader who gives me great ideas, advice and feedback.


	36. Retribution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard hunts for an ancient prothean weapon.

Shepard banged her head against her desk. "Kill me now," she moaned pitifully.

Thane chuckled as he walked up the steps and massaged her neck. "Can it really be that bad?"

"I never knew I would miss Miranda so much," she said with her forehead still on the desk. "Who knew there could be so much paperwork with half a crew and out in the middle of nowhere."

Thane's fingers felt heavenly on her neck. "You were the one who sent her away with Legion and Tali," he reminded her. "She wanted to stay."

"I know," she moaned sadly. "Can't I admit I was wrong? Don't stop," she added as she melted under his fingers.

"Perhaps I can help," he offered as his fingers slipped down under her shirt to caress her spine.

"How? Are you offering to do the paperwork?"

"I feel the need to continue to be of service," he said. There was only the slightest hint of regret in his voice. Shepard had removed him from the team roster for missions, a decision that hurt both of them, but they recognized as necessary. Unfortunately, that left her with only Jacob and Kasumi as squad mates.

"Deal," she mumbled. "I'll even give you Miranda's office if you want."

She could hear the smile in his voice as he answered. "Life Support will be sufficient. I find I miss the hum of the drive core at times."

She turned her head so she could glance up at him. "I hope you don't miss it that much. I find the bed up here much more comfortable than your old cot."

"I don't know. I rather liked having you pressed up so closely against me."

She waggled her eyebrows at him. "We could do that now."

He dropped a data pad in front of her nose. "Business first," he said, ignoring her groan.

He was sincere in his offer, and they spent the next hour teaching him everything he needed to know to deal with the various species of paperwork that seemed to plague humanity no matter where they went.

* * *

EDI's hologram pulsed brightly. "Shepard, I believe we have found the system we have been looking for."

"Really?" Shepard practically jumped out of her chair and ran to the lift. They had been searching this section of space for nearly two months. It was getting to the point that they were going to have to go back and resupply soon. Shepard and EDI had been scanning for the mysterious prothean weapon archive, the location of which had been so crudely shoved into Shepard's mind. But even with that information, searching through unmapped space was tedious and time consuming.

When Shepard looked down at the galaxy map, EDI displayed the star system layout. It looked promising. A young yellow star on the main sequence with six planets, one of them in the habitable zone. A shiver zipped down her spine as she looked at the system. "This is it, EDI," she said as she smacked her palm on the railing. "Take us in to the second planet and start scanning."

She was practically vibrating as she waited for Joker to bring the Normandy into orbit. The unnamed planet resembled Earth during the late Carboniferous period with an oxygen content of thirty one percent and massive blue-green jungles covering most of the landmasses. "What are you looking for, Shepard?" EDI asked.

"Not sure yet," she replied absently as she looked over the planetary scans. "A volcanic range near a coast, but that was fifty thousand years ago. Things might have changed."

"Calculating," EDI said. "I have highlighted all the relevant areas for you, Shepard."

Finally, Shepard pulled up one area. "This one."

"You don't sound positive, Shepard."

She sighed. "I'm not, but it's the closest to the one in my memories. We'll take the Kodiak and do some surface level flights. Maybe it'll clear up closer down. EDI, ask Jacob and Kasumi to meet me in the hangar in thirty."

In her cabin, Thane helped her dress in her armor. "Stay safe, siha," he whispered into her hair.

She hugged him gently, careful not to put too much pressure against his chest. "Always," she promised. She walked out, pretending not to notice the yearning and sadness in him at being left behind. They both wanted him at her side, and yet his illness made it impossible for him to continue to fight.

The Kodiak cruised slowly over the dense jungle that crept up the volcanic slopes. Suddenly Jacob pointed to one of the scanners. "Commander, look at this."

Even after two months, he couldn't, or wouldn't shake the habit of calling her by her rank. She ignored it as she looked over his shoulder. The scanner had picked up a structure that showed rectilinear outlines, something definitely out of place on this uninhabited world. "Good work, Jacob. Set us down."

The jungle was odd, even given that this was an alien world. It was full of plant life, huge towering palm-like trees with smooth blue trunks and blue-green fronds, but there were no other colors to relieve the blue-green monotony. There were very few sounds, as well. Only the sounds of the wind rustling the fronds and the loud incessant droning of insects. "Jesus jumping Christ!" Shepard exclaimed as a winged insect with a meter-plus wingspan suddenly darted out of the tree canopy at her. It pulled up at the last second as she reflexively brought her pistol up to bear.

Slimy leaf litter mixed with jagged volcanic rocks for a treacherous climb up the volcano's flank. They came into an opening in the tree canopy where the sun shined down brightly, illuminating a multitude of tiny winged insects that gleamed like jewels in the sunlight. "That way," Jacob pointed across the clearing. As usual, Shepard took point. They were halfway across before Kasumi started swearing softly. Her curses became more extreme before she broke and ran for the cover of the trees ahead of them.

"Kasumi!" Shepard chased after her and found her doubled over at the far side of the clearing. "What is it?"

"The insects. They've got a nasty sting," she gasped as she stripped off a glove. Her hand and forearm were starting to swell with numerous tiny bumps. Shepard pushed back Kasumi's hood to see the thief's face starting to swell, too.

Jacob ran a quick scan over her. "The insects are venomous. Looks like their stingers are strong enough to penetrate her light armor weave, too."

Shepard and Jacob were both wearing complete suits of heavy armor and hadn't suffered at all from the insects, but as Shepard watched, Kasumi's face and arm were visibly swelling and turning red. "Come on, we're getting you back to the shuttle," she announced.

They detoured around any insect swarms to get Kasumi back into the shuttle. Shepard consulted with Chakwas over the radio, and they decided to send Kasumi back to the Normandy in case her allergic reaction became serious.

"Just you and me, Jacob. You up for this?" Shepard asked as they watched the Kodiak lift off.

"Hell, yeah, Commander. I got your back."

The trek through the quietly humming jungle was long and steep, and in a few places, required some arduous rock scrambling, which wasn't easy in armor. Finally they saw it. An obviously manufactured roadway leading to a square-cut entrance into the mountainside.

They crept up cautiously on the entrance. Having no idea what they'd find, they'd come loaded for bear. Shepard pulled out her Locust while Jacob readied his shotgun. The doors hung askew, letting only one bright shaft of light into the gloomy cavernous room behind them. As their eyes adjusted to the low light, Shepard was amazed to see bioluminescent lichen lighting up the walls. She switched off her flashlight, and the lichen grew brighter. It was dim, but they could see well enough.

"Any ideas, Commander?" Jacob asked.

Shepard shrugged. "Down."

They cautiously explored the ruins. As on Ilos, there were gigantic pillars covered in incomprehensible glyphs. Shepard stopped at one wall that glistened an iridescent pink and green and pulsed softly in the light. "What in the world...?" She reached out her Locust, and as soon as the tip of her gun touched the wall, it exploded into an airborne swarm of pink, green, and black flying insects. Shepard fell back, and Jacob yelled and cursed. "Curiosity killed the cat, Commander!"

Shepard frowned and kept heading deeper in with Jacob close behind. The silence was oppressive, and the dim lighting had them both on edge. Everywhere they looked was evidence of the mighty civilization of the protheans, now fallen into wreck and ruin. Shepard only hoped there was something still left that could help them in their fight.

She'd lost track of how long they'd walked cautiously down and through the ruins until they finally saw something different. Shepard pointed at a console that still hummed and blinked with life. Jacob knew to let her approach first, in case it was another beacon, and he also knew not to interfere no matter what happened. Her stomach started knotting itself up at the thought of facing another prothean relic.

Cautiously, she went forward until she apparently triggered a proximity alert. A hologram rippled into existence in front of the console. It was a prothean, almost exactly like Vigil on Ilos.

It spoke, but it was a jumble of strange syllables that made no sense to her translator.

"I'm Shepard. I found your counterpart, Vigil, at Ilos. I've been looking for you," she said.

She was half expecting the beam of light that came from the console, but that didn't make the contact any less of an impact. It grabbed her and caused her back to arch painfully. "Commander!" Jacob yelled. She managed to hold up a hand to keep him back. Either she was getting used to this, or this one wasn't as bad as the others. She could still retain some freedom of thought and movement. There was a brief flickering through her mind, triggering a strong revulsion as it reminded her of the prothean relic that had nearly scrambled her brains on Liara's ship. As she thought of it, she could feel this beam following those thoughts, seeing it lead her to this planet. Strangely, she felt like it was caressing her mind, trying to mend the broken threads in her memory that the last relic had stomped through.

The beam released her, letting her drop to her knees on the cold stone floor. She wrenched her helmet off and vomited the contents of her stomach in front of the console. "Fucking protheans," she muttered as she spat to clear her mouth.

"I apologize for your previous experience, Shepard," the VI intoned. "The relic you interacted with was damaged. I have attempted to repair the damage."

"How about you stay the fuck out of my head," she snarled as she stood up.

"I had no way to contact Vigil. Reading you is the only way I can communicate with your species."

"So you know about Vigil?"

"Affirmative. I was the last of my kind to be created and hidden. I have knowledge of all the other bases. The protheans created and spread the relics around the galaxy as a way to point the next cycle to this location should they be unsuccessful at fending off the Reapers. You are the first to reach me." It paused. "I see that it has been nearly fifty thousand years. I take it the next cycle of harvesting is about to begin?"

"Correct. The Reapers are on their way. We've got a year. Maybe less."

Jacob came up alongside her, his weapon still out, but pointing down at the ground. "What are you?" he asked. He'd heard stories about Vigil on the Normandy, but this was his first time seeing such a thing.

"I am the protheans' final weapon. I am Retribution," it said.

"You are the weapon?" Shepard breathed. "They really finished it? Then why didn't they use it?"

The VI shook its head. "I am incomplete," it said, and she could have sworn its voice was tinged with sadness. "The best minds in the prothean empire worked on me for decades. I am an electronic weapon, but they never found a translation device. I do not know how to communicate myself to the Reapers."

She shook her head. "I don't understand. What translation device?"

"The Reapers, when they deigned to speak to us, used the language of the protheans. But among themselves, they have their own language. A heavily encrypted, complex machine language they built over eons. I lack the ability to translate myself into their native language. My designers had a goal to capture a Reaper, disarm it and bring it back for me to study. My wait was in vain. If they ever managed to capture a Reaper, they were unable to bring it here. Without knowing their language, I will remain ineffective."

Shepard's mind was going a million miles a minute. She pursed her lips and stared up at the cavern ceiling. Jacob asked, "What are you thinking, Commander?"

"You...Retribution? Did the protheans ever create a synthetic intelligence?"

She got the impression of a frown. "Why would we do that? We were trying to destroy the Reapers, not emulate them."

"The heretics, Jacob. They joined with Nazara, they spoke with the Old Machines. Legion said that part of the reason they wanted to save the heretics was to understand why they sided with the Reapers. Maybe they can help translate the language of the Reapers," she ended with her voice rising in excitement.

Her excitement was catching. "Maybe. But how do we get this VI to the geth?" he asked.

"Retribution, are you tied to this place? I guess we can bring the geth here."

"This facility is designed with a transmission antenna. However, my sensors indicate that the mechanism failed approximately three thousand years ago. You need to remove the obstruction so that I can extend the transmission antenna. However, you will need significant storage space," it warned.

"I'm not so sure EDI's going to be okay with sharing space with this thing, Shepard," Jacob commented.

She shrugged. "I hate to leave it here now that we've found it. Anyway, we have to get out of this place in order to communicate with the Normandy. Might as well fix the antenna while we're at it. Where do we need to go?" she asked the VI.

In answer, a series of overhead lights flickered on, illuminating a tunnel headed up. "My sensors indicate that a simple rockfall is blocking the antenna."

Shepard huffed out a breath. "When's the last time you remember anything being simple, Jacob?"

A sarcastic laugh was his only answer as he followed her up the tunnel. They climbed for what seemed an eternity, until she was sure they were high above the original entrance they had used. The tunnel was straight and clear and well lit, occasionally switchbacking as it climbed upward. Shepard's thighs were starting to ache when they finally came to the rockfall. Jacob scanned the area with his omni tool, looking for the best way to attack the problem.

After a few minutes studying, they decided on a course of action and started shifting rocks and boulders around. The ceiling and walls occasionally rumbled threateningly, but otherwise, it was quiet.

"I see sunlight, Commander," Jacob commented as they rolled an exceptionally large boulder out of the way. "I think we can get through soon."

Soon Shepard was able to squeeze through a gap in the tunnel. Jacob pushed a few more rocks out of the way and followed. "Here," he said. "Simple enough fix." He pushed some rocks out of the way and fiddled with the control systems while Shepard talked with EDI about finding space for the prothean weapon in her data banks. EDI thought she'd be able to firewall off sufficient space for their digital passenger, but she wouldn't know until she could communicate directly with it.

Soon enough, the antenna rose through the floor and Shepard smiled. "Hey, whaddya know. Simple for once. EDI, you ready?"

"Affirmative, Shepard. I have sufficient data storage, although it's not enough to allow Retribution to travel uncompressed. It will have to remain inactive until we find more data storage for it."

"Will it affect your ability to run the Normandy?"

"Negative, Shepard, although I am unable to take on any new responsibilities until I have my data storage back."

Shepard grimaced as she rolled a boulder out of the way to head back down. "Well, just do the best you can. We'll contact Legion when we get back to Citadel space and see if the geth can..."

"Commander, watch out!" Jacob yelled as he fired his Carnifax.

She spun in place with her SMG already in her hand. The last boulder she had moved had uncovered a writhing nest of gigantic centipede-like creatures. They hissed menacingly and scuttled along the floor toward her and Jacob. "Shit!" she muttered as she opened fire. "What the hell are these?" She and Jacob both danced backward away from the nest, but the creatures kept pouring out. There must have been dozens in there, and each one was well over a meter long.

Shepard flipped to full auto and unloaded into the mouth of the nest. The creatures popped in a nasty explosion of green ichor, but that didn't seem to deter the rest of the nest from swarming them. They were coming out faster than the two humans could shoot them.

"Fuck!" Jacob yelled as one of them twined up his leg and tried to either eat him or stab him, Shepard wasn't sure which. She wasn't even sure which end was the head, or if it even had one. She reached out and pulled, but its myriad legs had hooked around his armor plates and it was difficult to pull off. She finally settled for squashing it in her gauntlet, but more were swarming toward them.

"Up!" she yelled and gestured toward the hole in the ceiling. It was a hands breadth higher than either of them could reach so Shepard made a stirrup with her hands and nodded for Jacob to jump up. He widened the hole, showering her with clods of dirt and alien vegetation before he pulled himself out. As quickly as possible, he reached down to pull her out. She grabbed on, but the centipedes were already crawling up her legs. She pulled one off, but before she grab the others, she felt a hot sting in her inner thigh where her only protection was the compression suit.

Jacob hauled her up and pulled the creatures off her legs, but not before she got another sting. "Damn, that hurts!" she hissed under her breath. Her leg was already throbbing painfully.

"You alright, Commander?" he asked as he kicked the last centipede back into the hole.

She rubbed her inner thigh where the cuisse rounded off, but had to stop due to the pain radiating from the site. "I'll live," she muttered. "Let's just head back to the LZ. EDI, how's it going?"

"I am negotiating with the prothean VI, and it is uploading now. However, this is not a viable solution for any length of time. You must acquire more storage space for it."

"Understood," she said curtly as she led the way back through the blue-green jungle. They had to pick their way carefully around jagged rocks and dense undergrowth. Shepard didn't say anything, but she was starting to worry. She could feel the venom crawling through her body, and she was starting to flash between hot and cold. She only hoped her cybernetics were sophisticated enough to keep her upright until they got back to the shuttle.

She soon lost track of which way she was going except for the imperative to keep going down. Every time she set her foot down, the shock seemed to translate all the way up to her head, which was throbbing painfully in time with her thigh. The scenery was a never-ending collage of green, blue and brown, and flashes of sunlight through the canopy were rare. So the sudden flash of red and black provided a welcome variation, and she dragged her attention away from her misery and out in front of her.

It was a rachni brood warrior! Her hand scrambled for the Locust, but slipped off. She vaguely sensed Jacob drawing his weapon beside her. All around her was a soft crooning sound that promised peace and relaxation. She struggled to put her memories in place. For a moment, she couldn't decide if she should shoot the rachni or talk to it. Talk, she decided, as she suddenly recalled the asari on Illium who represented the queen.

She knocked Jacob's arm up in the air. "Wait!" she told him. The brood warrior didn't move, but she tensed up nonetheless, remembering numerous attacks by the rachni in the past. "Can you hear me?" she said to it.

"I hear you." The voice seemed to come from everywhere. The brood warrior still didn't move. "You are the one who freed me."

"You're the queen," she said, still looking at the brood warrior.

It suddenly scuttled to the side and positioned itself protectively in front of the massive queen as she appeared in a small clearing. "Jesus," Jacob whispered as he took a step backward.

"Put your weapon away, Jacob," she ordered as she stepped up to talk to the queen.

"The ones who sour my song are coming closer," the queen said. "Is that why you have come?"

Shepard dialed up a dose of painkiller to deal with the headache that was closer to a migraine. She needed a clear head to talk to the queen. "In part. We were searching for a weapon left behind by those from the last cycle. I didn't expect to find you here."

"We are still few in number, but we have been watching the relay into this sector. We followed your ship, but it wasn't until you landed here that we were able to determine that you were our savior from the place of frozen water."

"They're coming. The Reapers. We have to stop them." She cursed her impaired mental state. It was all she could do to find the words, let alone make them eloquent. "Will you help?" There was a note of pleading in her voice that shocked her. She didn't mean for her need to be so naked, but the pain was making it easier for her desperation to come to the fore.

"I will not allow my children to again be taken from me," the queen said.

Shepard frowned. Was that a threat or a promise? "Then we have to fight them. Otherwise, they'll kill everyone." It seemed like she had been saying that phrase over and over. Death for everyone. "An empty galaxy. No singing," she added, remembering that the queen communicated in song.

"They try to corrupt my song, but I will not allow it. My children listen to me. They sing the song of the rachni. They sing to the stars. We do not want our song to fall silent, and we do not want to sing to an empty galaxy. We will help you, Shepard." The queen paused and a much smaller rachni appeared at her side. It waggled its front legs at the queen then scurried over to Shepard and reached out a foreleg to touch her. She was too bemused to be worried and simply watched the creature, feeling as if she were watching a vid.

"Your thoughts are disconnected, Shepard," the queen sang. "I feared you had been taken over by the dark singers, but you are still free of their influence. You are ill."

"What influence?" she asked.

"The others, the ones who held me in the room of machines and who took my children to raise in silence. Their thoughts were held by the ones you call Reapers. Everyone's thoughts sing when they communicate. I harmonize in my children's song, and each of us can hear it in the others. When the Reapers hold influence over another's thoughts, we can hear that as well."

Shepard blinked slowly. "You can tell when someone is indoctrinated? Benezia?"

"Benezia," the queen repeated slowly. "Yes, that was her self-name. Her self-song was almost completely submerged by the sour song of the others."

Shepard felt like she should be grasping something important, but instead everything seemed to be pressing in on her and muddling her thoughts. Was the sun setting? It looked so dim in the jungle now. "Help. You said you would help." She hung onto that thought.

"Yes, Shepard. I and my children are ready to assist you. We have ships, I have many brood warriors, and I have a daughter now. Return to this place in six months, and we will be ready to fight with you."

The queen's crooning was becoming louder, or perhaps it was the swish of blood through her veins, or maybe even the humming of the insects on this jungle planet. It was becoming harder to focus on the queen's words. "Six months? I'm not sure we have six months. I need you now. Need to...integrate. Calm fears." History lessons on the krogan-rachni wars rose up in her mind. Grunt considered her his battlemaster, but she wasn't sure how he'd feel about being asked to fight alongside rachni instead of killing them. Heaven only knew how Wrex would react.

The queen hummed a melodic tune that seemed to emulate a sine wave, moving slowly up and down in pitch. "I hear your concern, Shepard. Bring your krogan here, and we will sing together."

Now it wasn't just the song that was moving up and down. So was the ground. It was becoming harder to stay on her feet when the earth kept shifting underneath her. The queen said something else, but she didn't hear it. She hit the stimulant button on her suit. She couldn't let this opportunity go by. She had to know what the queen could do and how to integrate it into her overall strategy. She opened her mouth, but forgot what she was going to say as the stimulant triggered a wave of pain through her chest that felt like it was squeezing her heart into pulp. Jacob was saying something, or was he shouting? She couldn't hear it over the beat in her head. She saw the ground looming larger, and she realized in surprise that she had fallen down. Her last thought was that she couldn't show weakness in front of the queen, but then the pain squeezed her head so hard that it chased coherent thoughts away.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Orchidellia, my beta reader who gives me great ideas, advice and feedback.


	37. Movements In The Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thane and Shepard face reality. Feron and Kasumi undertake a mission for Shepard.

Her throat was raw and parched. The pain and thirst were so strong that they dragged her out of the comforting darkness where she had been residing. She tried to open her eyes, but they didn't want to respond. It felt like there were boulders of sand trapped under her eyelids.

She tried to lift her hand to rub at her eyes, but something was holding it down. Painfully, she pried one eye partially open to see Thane sitting at her side and holding her hand. A blurry look around revealed that she was in the Med Bay. She tried to tug her hand free and vaguely realized that Thane had been sleeping sitting up. "Siha, you're awake," he rumbled softly and brushed her cheek with his lips.

"Water," she croaked.

He nodded and returned shortly with a glass of cool water. He helped her sit up and held the glass to her lips. She wanted to gulp it down greedily, but he only allowed small sips. Each one felt like nirvana to her parched mouth and lips. When she finished it, he laid her back on the bed. "What?" she whispered. Her throat was still so raw and scratchy that the single word was all she could manage, but he understand what she meant.

"The insect venom was quite strong, and you got a much larger dose than Kasumi did. Apparently, when you fainted, the rachni carried you back to the shuttle. I think that scared Jacob more than anything else that happened. Dr. Chakwas had already identified an anti-venom to help Kasumi, so once she administered it to you, there was nothing to do but wait until you woke up." He settled back at her side and held her hand tightly.

"Rachni?" she rasped.

"Gone. Shortly after the shuttle returned to the Normandy, we saw a craft lift off and head out.

Shepard huffed out her breath in annoyance. She had more that she wished to discuss with the queen, but now that would have to wait. Instead, she would have to figure out how to tell Grunt and Wrex they would be working with the rachni. Maybe she could get her point across with a head butt or two. She looked back at Thane and squeezed his hand. "Sorry for scaring you," she whispered

"That obvious, am I?"

She give him a wry smile and gestured tiredly toward the chair he was sitting in and then squeezed his hand. Her message was clear: you wouldn't be sleeping in a chair and holding on for dear life if everything was fine.

Thane brought her hand to his lips. "You are fine now, siha. I knew you were strong." Maybe it was the aftereffects of the venom, but she thought she heard his voice shake slightly.

"Damn straight," she croaked, but she held on just as tightly to his hand. Neither would admit it, but there were moments when life forced you to realize that it was all too fragile, and sometimes it didn't matter if it was a chronic disease or an alien creature - they could both kill you just as dead.

It took them three days to travel from the depths of rachni space to the mass relay and on to the Citadel. It wasn't long before Shepard was out of Med Bay, but the pain still lingered in her joints. Chakwas had promised it would fade slowly, but there was little she could do and the cybernetics weren't any help at all in this case. But as luck would have it, a bigger pain soon surfaced to push the physical ones away.

They lay intertwined in the dark of her cabin, only the light from the fish tank providing faint illumination. As he was wont to do, Thane threaded his fingers through her hair, gently working through the tangles left by their earlier exertions. There was something different about him tonight, however. While he was always attentive, he held her more tightly tonight, loved her more deeply than usual. She turned to her side and brushed the backs of her fingers along his cheek frill. "Spill it," she whispered.

He wasn't surprised by her insight. In the low light, his eyes were nothing more than obsidian chips that devoured all the available light as he looked at her. "My heart is torn, siha," he confessed. Her brows came together, and his fingers brushed the center of her forehead, trying to lighten her expression. "We have been here for two months." When she nodded, waiting for him to continue, he drew a deep breath. "Kolyat has evinced a desire for me to visit, and for longer than our usual layovers."

Understanding hit her immediately. There was little Thane wished for more than reconciliation with his son, and they had been slowly working toward that since they reunited those many months ago. Now to have Kolyat openly ask for his father to spend more time with him was literally the answer to his prayers, but the Normandy rarely spent more than two days at dock anywhere. However, Shepard could not afford to rest. She was the focus of the war preparations, and in spite of all her efforts at negotiation and persuasion, the galaxy was still far from ready and many races and factions still didn't even believe her. If she ceased her efforts, everything would fall apart.

And now Thane was saying that he wanted to leave her.

A sudden pain pierced her heart, and she struggled to keep the evidence off her face. Of course he wanted to spend time with his son. It would be incredibly selfish of her to ask him to stay. She could still write to him or have video chats when the Normandy was close to a comm buoy, and the Normandy regularly called at the Citadel. It wasn't like he was leaving her for another lover, she chastised herself.

"Shh." His hands smoothed her hair and cradled her close to him. Evidently she wasn't as good as she thought at keeping her emotions off her face. "It is not forever." They both ignored the lie implicit in his statement. His health was failing steadily in spite of everything Dr. Chakwas could do for him. Perhaps that prompted his next words. "I can seek out a specialist on the Citadel. Perhaps there will be some help there."

She might have been able to keep it together if he hadn't brought it out in the open and forced her to admit his illness. She opened her mouth to speak, but only a strangled sound came out. She quickly clamped her lips shut and wrapped her arms around him to hold him tightly. He continued to whisper reassurances in her ear while she fought down the storm inside.

Finally she leaned back and looked at him. She had to blink the tears away, but she refused to wipe her eyes and thereby acknowledge their existence. "Of course," she said in a wavering voice. "I understand. You need to spend time with him. You need..." She stopped and swallowed convulsively.

"I need a lifetime at your side, siha," he whispered. "Which is what you have given me, even if it is too short. You brought me back to life and made me realize how wonderful it is. I can never express to you how important that is to me." He pressed cool lips against hers and ran his hand down her back to pull her firmly against him.

Just once, she wished she could ask for what she wanted instead of being so pragmatic, for him to be miraculously cured and forever at her side. There was something he could give her though. She drew back a hairsbreadth. "Make me remember you, Thane," she whispered, somewhere between a plea and a demand.

His lips quirked up into a quiet smile. "It would be my pleasure, siha."

No matter how much they tried to hold back the passage of time, the Normandy finally docked at the Citadel.

"I'm going to miss you," she murmured into the velvety folds of his neck.

"And I you, siha," he said as he twined his fingers through her hair.

"Write often," she ordered. "I want to hear what you're up to. I don't have that whole eidetic memory thing that you do, so I need to hear from you often."

He almost smiled. "Surely you cannot have forgotten the past day so quickly," he chided.

She tried to tease him in return, but the impulse died in her chest. "I'll never forget you," she swore.

He swept her up and stole her breath away with a lingering, passionate kiss as he pressed her up against the repaired fish tank in her cabin. Even though she could see the advancing stages of his disease in the paler shade of his scales and hear the rasping of his breath, his body felt as taut and strong as ever. He picked her up so she could wrap her legs around his waist and kissed her hard. His lips pressed against hers as his tongue sought entrance to her mouth, which she gave willingly. She willed herself to fix this moment in her memory, the scent and taste of him, once so alien and now so familiar and comforting. She wanted to always remember the strength of his body and the security she felt when held in his arms. She nearly whimpered when he finally let her go and set her back on her feet, but she wouldn't let his last memory of her be one of sadness. Instead, she forced a happy smile and brushed her lips against his. " _Ashte il-remont_ ," she said. It was a drell saying he had taught her, meaning until we meet again. She didn't want to say goodbye.

He looked deep into her eyes for a long moment before he responded. " _Ashte il-remont_ ,  _siha_." His voice was rougher than usual, and he held onto her hand for as long as he could before his footsteps carried him out of her cabin.

She watched him step into the lift, and he gave her the same polite bow he had upon meeting her. Then the door slid shut, and he was gone.

* * *

"Z!"

"Well, well, look who the cat dragged in. Took ya long enough to get yer ass to Omega, Shepard." Zaeed sauntered through the airlock, bringing the ripe stench of Omega with him even through the decon cycle.

"Took a while for the Shadow Broker to track down Vido," she said as they walked through CIC. "I thought you were helping set up some security for the Broker."

"Didn't work out," he told her. "Too boring. Set 'im up with some of my mates I could trust, though. Figured I'd hang at Omega 'til ya contacted me. Made m'self a tidy sum o' credits while I was waitin'."

"It's good to have you back, Z. This ship's been far too quiet."

"Where's your drell, Shepard? You two seemed joined at the hip after the Collector Base." The lift opened on the cargo level and they headed into Zaeed's old room.

"He's on the Citadel, visiting his son." It was a short explanation, but she couldn't bring herself to add anything to it. Still, the canny old merc read between the lines.

"No news of a cure yet?" he asked as he dropped his duffel bag on the floor and took Jessie out of her gun case. Shepard shook her head. "Ah well, don't you worry. Did I ever tell ya about my grandpappy? They diagnosed him with terminal cancer when he was seventy six. Told him he'd be dead in a year. He moved to Italy, grew a garden and drank a bottle of wine every day. Got married again when he was eighty two and finally kicked the bucket at a hundred and three. Can't trust those goddamn doctors to know shit."

His story brought a smile to her lips. She'd missed this. "Let's grab some lunch and you can tell me all about Omega," she said.

As they settled down at a table, he looked around the mess hall. "I see Rupert's still slingin' chow, but it seems quieter than it used to."

"Yeah, we're down to about half the crew we had before. EDI's picking up the rest. As for specialists, there's you and Jacob."

He lifted a scar-bisected eyebrow. "That's it?"

She nodded once. "Kasumi was here, but she's off to Kahje for me and Liara. Everyone else is scattered to the winds," she said with an unintentional sigh.

Zaeed huffed out a laugh. "Damn, girl, you got me. What else do you need?"

She grinned back at him. "For starters, a couple of fleets, a krogan army, and a prothean super weapon."

He nodded and wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. "Well, the Suns may not be krogan, but they ain't no pussies. We take out Vido, you'll have yourself a decent army, Shepard. Rupert's gettin' better," he commented.

She grinned. "Just wait. He's decided to try his hand at French cuisine ever since I handed some champagne over to Joker. Wait til you try rack of vat-grown generic meat substitute in an asari red wine reduction sauce."

The old merc stared at her, trying to figure out if she was pulling his leg or not. "Is it edible?"

She shrugged, still grinning. "Put enough salt and hot sauce on it, and anything's edible. Besides, our next stop is Vido, so you won't have to suffer through it for long."

Zaeed made quick work of the rest of his lunch and handed the plate back to Rupert. "Can't come too soon, Shepard. I've been itchin' for some payback on that bastard for a long, long time."

* * *

_It always rains on Kahje._  That stupid truism made Feron snort in disgust. He'd sworn never to return to this prudish mudhole, but Liara had talked him into acting as Shepard's representative. The First Singer had made good on its promise to allow Shepard or her representative access to the hidden sections of the Kahje prothean ruins. That was a big enough surprise. The bigger one was how Liara had persuaded him to return to Kahje in the first place.

He ran from his ship into the docking complex, getting thoroughly soaked along the way. The drier air inside was a huge relief as he futilely tried to dry his clothes. As he did so, he looked around for his contact. All he knew was that his contact was a human who had been on Shepard's crew. He saw numerous hanar and drell, along with a few asari who seemed to be ubiquitous throughout the galaxy. There were even a couple of volus, but no humans.

Until he turned around and nearly stepped on a diminutive human woman wearing a hood that shadowed her face. All he could see was a pair of oddly painted lips and a hint of laughing eyes. "I was beginning to wonder if you would show up at all," she said in a low musical voice.

He blinked his inner eyelids rapidly in irritation. "Give me a break," he grumbled. "I nearly got killed twice last week in the Terminus systems. Kind of put a crimp in my schedule. Kasumi Goto, I presume?"

"None other," she confirmed. "Let's save the rest of our introductions until we get back to my room."

Kasumi's room turned out to be a luxurious suite in the space port complex, one of the rooms usually reserved for aliens. "We can talk freely here," Kasumi told him. "I scanned for bugs and have blocking measures in place." She collapsed into the massive couch covered in  _arghaht_  leather and nearly disappeared in the oversized cushions. "Your employer contacted me to assist you in searching through the ruins here. He thought a thief might have more luck finding things that certain people don't want found while you were busy doing all the expected things."

Feron took in the double bedroom, the spacious seating area and equally large dining area. He decided he should ask Liara for a raise next time he saw her. "What do you know about my employer?" he asked. Sometimes Liara forgot to include important details, such as whether or not he should trust the people she sent him to see. Which is why he'd had to shoot the last contact he had in the Terminus system. Damn shame, too. He'd been a promising engineer.

"The infamous Shadow Broker, who's helping Shepard in all sorts of nefarious ways. I'll find out more later, but for now, there are much more promising secrets to ferret out," she added with a barely noticeable wink.

Okay, so Kasumi wasn't in on the secret. Feron made a note to stick with the generic pronouns they used in public. "Good luck with that," was all he said aloud. "Do you know much about protheans?" He hoped she did, because that wasn't on his specialty list.

Unfortunately, his hopes were dashed when she shook her head. "Only what I memorized in the crash course the Shadow Broker sent me when he hired me for this."

Feron sighed. "Well, I've got Glyph." He had downloaded a stripped-down version of Liara's VI onto his omni tool before he left Hagalaz. Now he brought it up to show Kasumi.

"Greetings, Feron. How can I be of service?"

At least he'd finally fixed Glyph's recognition bug. "He knows everything there is to know about prothean ruins. Hopefully he'll be able to steer us toward something that can help."

The next morning, they headed to the ruins that lay in the heart of an extinct volcano. The top of the volcano formed a weathered and eroded island surrounded by a coral reef. The flitter settled down on a landing strip on a black sand beach. Their hanar guide led Feron and Kasumi to a recessed opening that seeming led them into the side of the volcano.

Inside was deliciously dry and cool, and Feron breathed deeply as he looked around. This entrance room was set up to function as a history museum, describing how the hanar first found and then gradually explored the ruins. Their guide led them through the outer room and short hallway into a larger, circular room that had a number of bulbous alcoves around the perimeter. Another hanar drifted over to greet them. This one was considerably larger and floated a few decimeters higher than their guide.

"Greetings. This one may be addressed as Elder Researcher."

Feron got the impression of fat and pomposity. That was fine. He knew how to handle its type. "Pleased to meet you," he said with just the right mix of humility and respect. "We are here at the behest of..."

"Yes, yes. This one is painfully aware of your request. The First Singer made a personal call to explain how important it was that this one takes time from its busy schedule to show visitors around." Somehow, even through the translator box, it managed to imbue the word  _visitors_ with dripping disdain.

Feron held back his surprise at the elder hanar's surprising lack of manners. "Yes, we very much appreciate your time and personal attention to such an important matter. As you are aware, every civilized race in the galaxy is doing whatever they can to assist in the preparation efforts."

The hanar had turned its snout away from them and floated toward the back of the room before Feron even finished speaking. He and Kasumi shared incredulous glances as they followed it toward an elevator. Apparently, there did exist hanar who couldn't be bothered with an outward show of politeness.

"This one will show you through the main ruins, although it highly doubts that you will find anything of use. Hanar have investigated these ruins for hundreds of years. What makes you think that you can find something when the best minds in the Illuminated Primacy have not?"

Feron took a deep breath. "It may be a long shot, but these ruins are supposed to be among the largest and best preserved in the galaxy. Shepard feels that there is a chance that we can find something to help us in our fight against the Reapers, and the First Singer agreed to give us access."

It hrmmed through its translator, and Feron mentally translated that as a put-upon sigh. "Yes, yes, this one is well aware of the First Singer's promise. You do realize that it will take you days to even casually explore the main rooms, do you not?"

Here was where it might get sticky, Feron thought. "Yes, but as you mentioned, the hanar have been exploring here for centuries. So we want to start with the oldest ruins, the ones that aren't normally open to the researchers."

As he thought it might, the Elder Researcher flushed an irritated yellow and orange. "See here, those ruins are still being catalogued. We do not allow outsiders in there. You will content yourselves with the public rooms."

Feron shook his head. "I'm sorry, but we simply don't have the time for that. As I mentioned earlier, we're in a race to find anything at all that could be of use." He looked around the dimly lit cavern that marked the entrance to the Kahje ruins. He had expected that gaining access to the older sections would be difficult, and Liara once again came to his aid. He held out a message disc. "Here is a copy of our authorization from the First Singer. I'm sure you can understand how important this is."

One of the hanar's tentacles reached out to take the disc, delicately avoiding touching a single scale on Feron's hand. Once again, it gave that aggravated sigh through its translator. "Very well. Although this one insists that one of our researchers accompany you at all times. The older sections can be unstable. In addition, anything that you find must be reported to us immediately. Is that clear?"

Feron and Kasumi both nodded, playing the part of grateful visitors, willing to obediently follow all the rules. The elder hanar flashed quickly, not bothering to translate through its voice box for the aliens in its domain. A smaller, purple-tinged hanar floated over to them. The Elder Researcher spoke quickly. "This is one of our junior researchers. It will be your guide for today. Don't touch anything," it warned before it floated back to the elevator.

Feron glanced at Kasumi and saw her lips twitch in amusement, but any discussion about the peculiarities of their host would have to wait until after they were out of the ruins. "Greetings," the smaller hanar said. "Follow me, and I will take you to the lower levels." Somehow, even through its translator, it managed to project contempt and apathy for its task.

As they followed it into another elevator, this one looking much more industrial, Feron closed both sets of eyelids and tried to reach for the calm he had been working on for the past several months. It was impossible for him to do here, though, and he finally gave it up as the elevator ground to a halt.

They stepped out, following their guide. Lights rippled on in multiple curving corridors. "How many levels are there?" Kasumi asked.

"There are three above us that have been well categorized and explored. This one and the next two down are generally off limits to outsiders. Below that are the flooded levels. There are two of those." It turned to examine them. "You will need survival suits if you plan to visit those levels."

Feron sighed. He knew this would be a large task, but he hadn't appreciated how big until now. Liara definitely owed him a raise. "We're wasting time," he growled, letting a rumble of irritation sound in his voice. "Let's get going."

* * *

Jack Harper contemplated his screens and frowned. On the surface, things seemed to be going according to the schedule he had meticulously mapped out years ago. But dig a little deeper and there were some disturbing discrepancies.

Someone was making a play for his holdings. He'd lost three more companies in the Terminus systems in the past month, and nearly lost one of his major military contracts. There weren't that many players in the galaxy who could compete on his level, and he'd already checked out each of them to no avail. It was someone new, and he suspected it was Shepard's new best friend, the Shadow Broker. He had a rough idea where the Broker resided, but so far, hadn't deemed it worth expending the resources to hunt him down. Now he was reconsidering that decision.

He brought up a screen detailing his progress on the Collector base and smirked. Shepard was so busy trying to rally the galaxy that she had left her greatest resource unprotected. Oh, she thought she had protected it by sending Miranda to lead an independent research team, but it had been incredibly easy for his troops to come in and take over. Now his team had unrestricted access to everything in there. They had already reanimated the proto Reaper and sent several pieces of Reaper tech to his facility on Horizon. Miranda had been the biggest problem, but she was safely on her way back here, even if it was against her will. It was a shame. Of everyone on his payroll, he had thought she was the most committed to Cerberus and its cause. Instead, Shepard had somehow managed to sway Miranda to her side.

He frowned and drank the rest of his whiskey. It all came back to Shepard. She claimed she wanted to work in partnership with him, but she was attempting a takeover of Cerberus. He'd been willing to put up with more insubordination from her than from any other resource of his, but she'd pushed him too far. In addition, she appeared to have found something from the protheans, something that she was hopeful could be used as a weapon against the Reapers. He needed to find out what that was and put a stop to it. He had his own plans for the Reapers, and it didn't include destroying them.

He needed to neutralize her.

He had an elegant solution in mind, one that would take care of either Udina or Shepard. Udina had become more of a liability than a help, and the diplomatic corps was taking too long to find a suitable replacement. He crafted a message to Udina ordering him to revoke Shepard's Spectre status. As soon as that happened, the Alliance would be free to pick her up and take her back to Earth where she would be put on trial for her association with Cerberus. Held incommunicado but safe, she would still be available when the Reapers finally showed up. He still needed her to lead the war effort and hold the Reapers back until he could finalize his plans. If Udina's plot against Shepard was discovered, as he suspected it would be, he could flush out the spies or they would take out Udina for him. Either way, it was a win-win situation for him.

Things were falling into place, and while Shepard had rearranged a few of the pieces on the table, the overall situation was still as he had planned.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Orchidellia, my beta reader who gives me great ideas, advice and feedback.


	38. Life, Love, and Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Milar asks Thane for a favor.

_To: Krios, Thane; private citizen, Citadel, Zakera Ward_  
_From: Shepard (Spectre); Normandy SR2 [comm B-_ _alpha_ _24-eta-145]_  
_Priority: Alpha (Spectre/Council Business)  
_ _Security: Alpha (Spectre/Council Business)_

_Yes, I'm using my Spectre account to send you mail. And before you chastise me about using it for personal reasons, let me just say I think the system can handle it._

_First - I miss you! You have no idea how lonely it is on the Normandy now. Z was here for a while, but after we found Vido and took him out, he left to take over the Blue Suns. I plan on using them as a militia force for civilian protection. I can just hear the screams of protest now, but I'd rather hear screams than nothing at all, which is what will happen if we don't start coming up with some civilian protection._

_I want to hear what you've been up to! How's Kolyat? Is he still seeing that cute girl? He can scowl all he wants, but I think he likes her a lot. Have you heard anything from Mordin? I keep hoping he's talked to you and just forgot to send me an update._

_The only good thing about spending so much time in transit and so few crew on board is that I have no excuses to fall behind on my paperwork. You'd be proud of me. Although I will admit to falling into daydreams on more than one occasion. I'm so envious of your perfect recall. My memory's not horrible though. I remember something you said to me when we first started talking. '_ The taste of another's tongue in your mouth _.' Well, I've been remembering, too, and I confess that I'm remembering a lot more than just kisses!_

_I miss you. I love you. I can't wait to see you again. Memories will never compare with your touch._

_Your siha_

* * *

"A daughter?" Shepard asked incredulously.

"Or a son," Joker said with a grin as he spun around in his pilot's chair. "I've got twins already. Beautiful baby girls who are gonna break their pilots' hearts."

Shepard sank down onto the console that held EDI's projection in the cockpit. It was the closest thing to a visitor's seat in the confined space. "I thought EDI was going to be the model for the AIs in the turian fleet."

"Mother is a better description, Shepard," EDI told her. "I have run multiple scenarios and discussed the subject at length with Jeff. In every case, it is better if I act as the seed for the new AIs, but mix in various characteristics from organics that I know and trust. That will prevent my daughter AIs from becoming clones of myself. Just as Jeff and I perform better together than either of us alone, daughters that have differing characteristics will provide a more varied response and evolution against the Reapers." EDI's hologram pulsed rapidly. "I would be honored if you would provide the defining characteristics for one or more of my daughters, Shepard."

For once in her life, Shepard was speechless. Her entire life had been about her career with no time to spare to think about families. Even with Kaidan, the thought hadn't been more than a fleeting, pleasant daydream. With Thane, biological reality meant they could never have children, so she simply gave it no thought. Now she was trying to grasp the concept of being a parent to an AI. "Um...what would I have to do?"

"With your permission, I would imprint my evaluations of you into a daughter AI as it's being created. Then she would talk with you and learn from you. She will not be like a human child, Shepard. She will be fully sentient immediately, but her personality will be malleable. In the course of your conversations, she would learn what you like and admire and strive to bring those qualities to the forefront of her self-determining programming."

"You mean if I tell her I like action vids and blowing things up, she'll grow up loving explosions?" Shepard imagined a daughter AI and Garrus bonding over Thanix calibrations, then shook her head.

EDI's hologram pulsed again. "Crude but somewhat accurate, Shepard. The turians are installing AIs in most of their fleet. As the daughters gain complexity, they should naturally gravitate to various types of ships."

Shepard glanced at Joker, who was still grinning just as if he was the proud papa of human babies. Maybe to him, this was even better. His babies were going to be ships. "Huh. So I could end up with a daughter who's a cruiser? Or a dreadnought?" Her lips quirked up at the thought.

"Yes, Shepard. There is a certain amount of random chance programmed into the daughter AI templates to ensure that they don't all become alike, so it is impossible to predict how each daughter will evolve."

Shepard laughed. "Just like human kids. Okay, I'm in. And EDI, I'm honored to have you pick me as a parent of your daughter."

"Your daughter will talk to you in your cabin, Shepard. It's best to have privacy and several hours to bond with her."

"Got it. Well, I guess I get to be a mommy after all," she said with an uncharacteristically shy smile as well as a determination that she'd be a better one than her own mother.

Joker winked at her as she headed for the lift. Once in her cabin, she sat at her desk. "EDI, I'm ready. What do I do?"

EDI's hologram lit the dark recesses of her cabin entry. "I'll introduce you. Shepard, meet your daughter."

Her blue orb winked out, to be replaced by a white and red cube. "Hello," came a monotone voice. Shepard thought it was a female voice, although she wasn't entirely sure.

"Hi. Um...I'm pleased to meet you. I'm Shepard, although I'm sure EDI has told you. Do you have a name?"

"Not yet," she said. "Part of my programming is to determine my own name; however, it was strongly encouraged that I wait to talk to you and find a name that is meaningful to you, just as human parents do."

"Sounds like a good idea. You know, for all the time I've spent with EDI and Legion, the idea of AIs is still a new one, let alone a baby AI. I think I actually feel like a parent with a flesh and blood baby, worried that I'm going to do something horrible to screw you up." Shepard wrinkled her nose and wondered if she should have even said that aloud.

"Do you want to screw me up?"

"No, no! Not at all. I want you to 'grow up' to be the most incredible, um, AI ship ever. You've got a pretty high bar to beat though. EDI has been a great friend and saved my life on multiple occasions."

"My programming tells me that saving lives is my highest priority, but I find it comforting that you value it as well."

"I do," Shepard affirmed. "That's been my goal ever since Cerberus brought me back. First it was to save the human colonies from the Collectors, and I did it," she said with no small amount of pride. "I led us through what everyone called a suicide mission with no casualties. And now, my goal is nothing less than the absolute destruction of the Reapers and the preservation of all galactic life." She leaned back in her chair and laughed softly. "The Council didn't want to believe me, but I'm dragging them kicking and screaming to face reality. We'll do it, I swear."

"Will you tell me about your suicide mission?" her daughter asked. "EDI supplied me the data files, but I'd like to hear about it from you."

They talked about the suicide mission, which led to Ilos, which led even further back to Shepard's service history and her own family history. As they talked, Shepard could hear her daughter's voice take on more complexity and emotional tones. Eventually, the conversation became less one-sided with her daughter adding her own tentative opinions and listening to Shepard's opinions in turn. They talked until dinner time when Shepard's stomach rumbled.

"Shepard, I've chosen a name. I hope you like it," her daughter said, and Shepard thought she heard shyness in her voice.

"Tell me."

"Boudicca. She was a famous female war leader of the Celts in 60 CE who rebelled against the Roman Empire."

"Boudicca. I've heard of her." Shepard rolled the name around in her mouth again. "I like it. It's a strong name."

"Thank you, Shepard. I need to go offline now. I need time to process our discussion."

"Well, um...call me anytime, Boudicca. That's what a mom's supposed to be for, right?" This whole parent thing was confusing, although she was happy she didn't have to deal with diapers.

"I will, Shepard. Good night."

"Good night, Boudicca." Shepard headed for the mess with a bounce in her step, already thinking about how she would tell Thane about her new daughter in her next email.

* * *

Thane was a frequent guest for dinner at Milar's apartment now. There was a comfort in talking with someone with whom you had a shared history, especially when it was one not easily understood by others. For as much as he had discussed the Compact with Shepard, there was still that part of her that refused to accept it as he did. His own son was even more open in his scorn of the Compact. But with Milar, there was no need to explain and defend. His earliest true memories were of the Compact and the family he had there. They may not have been related by blood or marriage, but they were united in duty and honor, which was just as strong.

They were relaxing in her living room, she with a glass of wine, and he with a cup of tea from Kahje. He had dearly missed this particular blend and carefully inhaled as deeply as he could to savor it. "I have a request, Milar." He waited until she nodded. "I would ask you to watch over Kolyat as a son, not just as a Guild handler." Kolyat didn't see it, but to Thane, it was clear. Milar was carefully, but thoroughly, training his son in Compact methods of data gathering and pattern analysis.

Milar didn't say anything for a long moment. "I suspect that I will be doing so anyway, soon enough."

"They are serious, then?"

Milar gave him a sad smile. "More than I ever was with Hama's father."

Thane furrowed his brow plates in confusion. "I had thought you found a love match."

She shook her head and took a drink from her glass. "Arranged, but unfortunately, he was not Compact and when he realized my level of commitment...it didn't work out."

"And Hama?"

She truly smiled now. "A happy accident, but one I was blessed to have."

"Ahh," was his only comment as he settled back in the chair.

"I was always so envious of you, Thane," she admitted. At his look of surprise, she nodded. "You know how rare it is for someone to request release from the Compact. You were quite the topic of conversation for a while. I admit, I wasn't really sure if you loved her or if the coup incident had a bigger impact on you than I thought."

Thane bowed his head. "I loved her more than anything in my entire life."

"I realized that eventually. I am sorry for her death, Thane."

He nodded and busied himself with his tea. "Do you expect them to make a formal declaration?"

She laughed, glad for the change in topic. "Probably not. That's so old fashioned now, Thane," she teased him. "Besides, we're on the Citadel, not Kahje. How do you feel about being a grandfather?" She laughed again at the sour glare he sent her. "Given both their parents' history, I'd be surprised if they actually waited."

Thane murmured a prayer to Arashu for patience, both for him and Kolyat. "I do not want my son following in my footsteps," he said sharply, although his expression relaxed as he recalled his earliest days with Irikah. In truth, he admitted to himself, he had no right to insist that Kolyat wait, given that his son's conception had been just as accidental as Hama's. "I left him a child and returned to find him a man." If his voice had a hint of lamentation in it, Milar did not comment on it.

Instead she smiled. "I know you think you failed him, but I disagree, Thane. I think you and Irikah did a fine job. Having a family is an exceedingly difficult transition to make for any Compact-trained operative." She set her wineglass down and leaned forward. "I have a request to make in turn, Thane. And it is much more serious. I need your skills."

She didn't have to elaborate for what, but Thane felt compelled to point out the obvious. "I am no longer able to perform those tasks, Milar."

"There's no one else I can trust. I suspect my staff has been infiltrated, and I can't ask Kolyat and Hama to do this. Besides, it involves your Shepard."

Thane stilled as he always did when receiving unsettling news. "What is it?"

"I intercepted a clandestine order for Councilor Udina. It was an order for him to convince the Council to strip Shepard of her Spectre status. Thane, if that happens, it leaves her vulnerable to the Alliance military. They have been unhappy with her collaboration with Cerberus from the beginning and we have heard rumors that they wanted to arrest her, but her Spectre status protected her. If Udina convinces the Council to revoke it..."

"The Alliance will take her back to Earth," Thane finished. "Who sent the order to Udina?"

"I don't know," Milar admitted with a rare show of frustration. "I can't find who's pulling his strings. There's another problem. The order came through a channel that I suspect is compromised." When Thane looked confused, she elaborated. "I think the one sending that order knew it would be intercepted. So it could be a trap to flush out the listeners. Me."

Thane leaned back in his chair. "Even if it is a trap, I cannot allow this man to put my siha at risk."

She sighed. "I know. We need Shepard. The problem is that she's making waves, as ever. The galaxy loves her, but the Council is scared that she is upsetting the balance of galactic power. Bringing the geth into the Council chamber frightened them, although they won't admit it. You know how those in power react when threatened."

He did, only too well. His early life had been dedicated to ensuring the stability of power for the hanar, and even if he didn't know the details on why his contracts had been initiated, the intent behind them was clear enough. "Then you expect this man will be monitored?"

She nodded. "Not only that, but his death must appear to be natural."

Thane considered his options. "Poison or accident. There are not many poisons which are undetectable in humans..." He paused as Milar reached out and handed him a tiny plastic square. He held it up and looked at her questioningly.

"It will look like a heart attack, a very common ailment in older human males. They will not look too hard."

"You are well prepared," he remarked dryly.

Her only response was an equally wry smile. "You have your skills, I have mine."

He hummed low in his register, indicating contemplation and wariness. Neither of them debated the morality of their plan. Such concepts didn't even merit consideration. Instead, he was focused on how to accomplish the task. "This will not be easy. My illness..."

She held out her hand to stop him. "That's why I'm coming with you." When he started to object, she spoke over him. "No, listen to me, Thane. You can't be seen. You're already associated with Shepard. You need my help on this. You don't have time to learn the surveillance on the Presidium. Besides, the plan I have in mind should make it a fairly easy operation."

Thane tried one more time. "The risks are even greater for you. Shepard can always disavow me. You have your position to protect."

She shook her head. "I believe in Shepard, Thane. When her Reapers show up, my position isn't going to matter much anymore. I've already made plans to get back to Kahje and start moving things there."

Thane sighed, accepting the inevitable. "Thank you, Milar. Your help will be valuable." They roughed out their plans for the rest of the evening. In his heart, Thane admitted that he had missed the thrill of the hunt. This would be nothing like the flashy and loud confrontations Shepard tended to bring him on. This was his specialty, stalking his prey and delivering death silently and unseen. That it was to protect his siha felt only fitting for what he knew would be his final hunt.

By the time their children came home, they had settled on the details and were discussing banalities. Since Thane was staying at his safe house, he accompanied Kolyat back to his apartment. He noticed that Kolyat kept glancing at him, then looking away. It seemed as if his son wanted to ask him something but couldn't gather the courage to do so. Gods knew that they'd had enough awkward conversations. Thane decided to ignore his son's behavior and simply walked in silence.

Finally Kolyat asked his question. "Is it common for Compact drell to leave service like you did?"

The question nearly threw him back to his earlier conversation with Milar. He wondered if it was coincidence. "No."

Kolyat waited for him to elaborate, but when it was obvious he wouldn't, he asked, "Why?"

It was late, and the sidewalks were fairly deserted. Still, Thane lowered his voice until Kolyat had to step closer to hear. "Those in Milar's line of work tend to be consumed by it. They continue working until old age forces them out." He felt his son's gaze on him as he walked. He knew what Kolyat wanted, and finally he answered. "Those in my line usually die. The odds eventually catch up with us."

Kolyat quietly digested that fact. "Do many of you have families?"

Thane shook his head. "No, at least not outside of the Compact. They are my brothers and sisters, as much as...no, more so than my own blood siblings."

Now it was Kolyat's turn to be quiet as he asked, "Do you ever regret meeting Mother?"

"No!" Thane stopped and faced his son. "Never once have I regretted meeting and loving your mother." He paused and looked down at the ground. "I regret the circumstances that led to her death, but the memories of my life with her are among the happiest that I have. And I have you, Kolyat."

He saw his son's lips twitch and a flicker of sorrow pass over his expressive face. Kolyat took a deep breath and looked down the street. "I hope you're happy with Shepard. She's...good for you. She suits you in a way that Mother couldn't. I see that now."

"Irikah taught me to live, to connect with people again. She taught me to question authority and discover who I was. Shepard understands me as your mother could not, as a warrior. They are vastly different, but they are both strong and deserving of love and respect." Gently, Thane reached out and held onto Kolyat's shoulder. "Thank you, son."

Kolyat looked embarrassed and shrugged off his father's hand after just a few seconds, but Thane caught the wordless subvocals of contentment. That would do.

* * *

It was deep in the sleep cycle of the Presidium when Thane's omni tool alerted him to an incoming message. He startled awake. He hadn't meant to actually fall asleep, but it was becoming harder to maintain his meditations these days. The lack of oxygen meant he needed more sleep. He stretched his body and sent back an acknowledgement to Milar. He had already gathered his items. All he needed was to slip into a hooded jacket. He didn't care for it as much as his regular leathers, but there were times when he had to remain anonymous, and this was definitely one of them.

He activated his stealth programs and disappeared from electronic view. It was nearly an hour later when he met Milar at the Presidium. She was wearing a similarly hooded robe that looked like it mimicked salarian styles more than anything. Like the true professionals they were, neither displayed the slightest bit of nervousness or hesitation as they put their plan into action.

At a predetermined spot, they split up, with Milar pausing near an Avina terminal and Thane going on ahead to Udina's apartment. This was the trickiest part of the entire operation. There was a slight chance that the man might not be in his apartment, but they had deemed the risk minor. The human had a routine and rarely changed it. Just as Thane approached the door, Milar activated a program she had spent years preparing.

"Warning, fire in Presidium ring, sector B-12-a. All residents are required to evacuate." Avina's voice rang out over the Presidium hallways, invoking instant panic among the few beings still awake and moving in the hallways. In spite of the Citadel's impressive technology, fire was still the biggest threat for any space station or spaceship, and everyone who spent any amount of time in a space environment feared fire and knew exactly what to do. Avina's protocols were impossible to hack, but there were other ways to confuse sensors to achieve what she wanted. Milar had been preparing for all sorts of contingencies ever since she arrived on the Citadel. This was merely one of them.

As required by safety protocols, all apartment doors automatically opened up to allow the occupants to exit and seek safety. Thane activated an electronic jammer and slipped inside immediately. The lights were all on, but there was nothing he could do about that. He heard the sound of someone struggling out of bed. Without a sound, he was through the bedroom door, the poison patch ready and waiting on his fingertips. Udina turned around with one arm stuck through a shirt. "Who...?"

It was almost pitifully easy. It was normally the sort of job given to a neophyte just out of Guild training to condition them to delivering death. Thane's hand pressed the patch against the human's neck while his other arm held the human still. His illness had dulled the edge of his speed, stealth and strength, but what remained was more than enough to hold the human until the poison did its job.

Carefully Thane lowered the human to the floor and waited until death was a certainty. A quick swipe over his neck with a solvent pad erased the evidence, and then Thane arranged him to look as though he had collapsed while getting dressed. The poison patch and solvent pad went into a tiny bag and into an inner pocket. Prayers would have to wait until he was far away from the apartment and lost in the crowd.

Making sure his hood was still in place, Thane blended effortlessly into the crowd in the hallway. He worked his way to the rendezvous point, but Milar was gone. Unconcerned, Thane continued to the secondary rendezvous point, but before he reached it, he felt another coughing fit reach out to take him. He shoved his way to the outer edge of the walkway and managed to get to the railing before his lungs seized up on him. _Not now!_ he railed. All he could manage was to cling to the railing and try to avoid collapsing on the floor. He needed to exit the Presidium before he could turn off his anti-surveillance measures. He certainly didn't need to be attracting the amount of attention that he was already garnering. Before long, a good Samaritan would stop and ask if he needed assistance. He couldn't afford for his face to be seen, not so close to Udina's apartment. He cursed the gods for his failing health as he sensed his mission fail on him.

Suddenly he felt a solid arm slide under his and support him. A hand went into his jacket and found the injector he always carried these days. He sensed more than saw Milar wave off a concerned citizen as she gave him the shot to ease his coughing. She knew exactly how to support him to let his lungs get as much air as possible, and soon the worst of the coughing fit passed, but Thane still felt light-headed.

"Go," he gasped. "I'm compromised." Thane knew that they couldn't afford for Milar to chance being associated with Udina's death. In spite of all the precautions they had taken, it wasn't a certainty that the ruse would survive scrutiny.

She shook her head and kept her arm wrapped around his waist as she guided him back into the flow of evacuees. "Change of plan," she murmured. "Besides, we need to get you to a clinic."

Thane tried to argue, but he needed all of his air just to keep breathing and walking. He was unable to prevent Milar from guiding him through the crushing throng of people.

He hated it! He hated being so dependent on her just to walk. He hated being surrounded by so many unknown people and knowing he was helpless to defend himself. It felt like the very air he needed to breathe was being sucked away by all the people crowded into this small area. He tried to concentrate on where they were going, but the simple act of breathing was taking all his energy. He was only conscious of people bumping and crushing into him, and before long, he started to flinch away from every contact. Milar said something, but her quiet words were lost in the buzz of nervous talk from the crowd around them.

It felt like forever before the crush of people loosened up around him. Someone else came up to support him. He looked up and realized they were in a clinic. Milar rubbed his arm in comfort before the nurses took him away. No, he realized. She had taken his omni tool. He sagged with relief as he saw her nod. She would cover his tracks. Hacking his omni tool would be child's play for her.

Thane allowed the medical attendants to take him into a room and put him on oxygen. He lay back on the bed and relaxed. His siha would be safe from at least one threat. There were many more out there, but he had done what he could. The rest was up to her and Arashu.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Orchidellia, my beta reader who gives me great ideas, advice and feedback and who lobbied for a Thane-Milar action scene.


	39. Pieces In Play

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thane and Kolyat make progress in their reconciliation. Shepard meets up with some old friends.

_To: Shepard (Spectre); Normandy SR2, Cerberus_  
_From: Krios, Thane, private citizen, Citadel, Zakera Ward_  
_Priority: lowest (public access)_  
_Security: high (beta)  
_ _(Delivered two days after being sent and one day before the Normandy docked at the Citadel)_

_My loveliest siha,_

_I was pleased to hear of your mission success with Zaeed. I'm sure he's ecstatic in finally fulfilling such a long time goal. Kolyat is indeed still seeing Hama. He is still not keen on sharing private details of his life with me, but some things cannot remain hidden. I am all too familiar with the hidden looks of longing, the furtive touches, the quiet whispers that hide words but not intonation._

_I miss you in every conceivable way, siha. I miss the way the room fills with your movement and laughter. I miss the way your eyes light up when we meet. I miss the soft feel of your skin and the even softer and delicious taste of your mouth. I miss the quiet moments in the middle of the night and waking up at your side. And while I can remember our moments together, I long for the ability to make new memories at your side._

_So it is with a heavy heart that I must inform you that I will be gone from the Citadel when the Normandy next docks here. You know that I have been looking forward to our time together as much as you, and you know there is only one reason that could pull me from your side._

_Professor Solus has contacted me and asked me to travel to Sur'Kesh. He thinks he has a promising treatment for me, but I need to go to him as quickly as possible. I confess, siha, I have not been entirely honest with you in our past letters. I have had to seek medical attention as my disease becomes more advanced. My physician has strongly recommended that I check into the hospital full time._

_You know that I do not wish to end my life in a hospital bed attached to tubes, although if it gave me another day at your side I would gladly do so. But I find my heart stirs wildly and beats harder at the thought of a cure, in spite of all the admonishments I have given you for relying upon such hope in the past. And so I will travel to Sur'Kesh tonight. It may be a small hope, but I find myself grasping for such small hopes with all my remaining strength._

_Please check on Kolyat and Hama when you arrive at the Citadel. I know it is much to ask, but would you act as his protector as well? I do not ask you to become his mother; neither of you would accept such a role, but I believe you could be a good friend and influence upon him._

_I know you do not share my beliefs, but I hope you will pray for me, siha. You are Arashu's own, and I believe that she would look kindly upon you._

_With a heavy, but hopeful heart,_

_TK_

* * *

Thane always traveled light. He had given his ceremonial dagger and necklace to Milar, trusting her to get them back to Kahje where they would be safe for someone else. Still, there was one particular thing he wanted to take with him, and it was still in his safe house. Unfortunately, Milar had sided with the physicians and convinced him to stay in her apartment. His disease was progressing faster now, and his physician no longer wanted him to stay alone. Since Thane had absolutely no intention of moving in with Kolyat, he had reluctantly taken Milar up on her offer to stay with her.

Still, there was hope. He hadn't mentioned it to Shepard before now, not wanting her to get her hopes up when the chances were so low. But low did not mean impossible, as he knew from recent experience with Shepard at the Collector's base.

He opened his messages again. There was the priority message from Mordin asking him to travel to Sur'Kesh as soon as possible. He believed he had modified the critical elements of Project Lazarus to use the technology on drell, but he would have to go to the STG research hospital for them to try it out. He already had a ticket booked on a ship leaving this evening.

Kolyat entered the apartment. In spite of Hama's tendency toward flightiness, or perhaps because of it, she had pulled more life from Kolyat than Thane thought possible. When Kolyat didn't think he was watching, he saw his son smile and hover protectively nearby. Once he had even caught a laugh, something he was worried Kolyat had forgotten how to do.

Kolyat walked into the bedroom where Thane had been staying and handed him the mug. "I can't believe you still have this," he muttered with a shake of his head. "You travelled all over the galaxy for years, and this is what you choose to carry with you everywhere?"

Thane took it from him with reverence. "It was a gift from you," he said as he reached for a piece of cloth to cushion it.

Kolyat watched in bemusement as Thane wrapped it up. He remembered making it many years ago. His mother was always flirting with different artistic endeavors. She liked trying things out, although she usually wasn't very good at it. But she would try her hand and laugh at the results. As Kolyat grew older, she took him with her, and so he had experimented with painting, sculpture, music, and anything else that caught her fancy. One day, she showed him how to decorate a tea mug for his father as a welcome home present. The memory swept him back in time.

_I made it just for you, Daddy.  
_ _Show me, Kolyat.  
_ _A strong arm holds me up as he turns the mug in his other hand.  
_ _I'll treasure it always, he rumbles with pride and love.  
_ _I missed you, Daddy.  
_ _And I you, Kolyat, as he hugs me tightly_.

Kolyat blinked rapidly as his father packed the mug carefully away. Somehow, the fact that he still had that mug, decorated in a child's free abandon, spoke more about how his father had cared about him than all the words exchanged between the two. So many things were different when viewed through an adult's perspective, especially now that he knew his father's history. He leaned against the doorway and looked at the man he'd hated, respected, and wondered about his whole life. ' _Actions speak louder than words,_ ' his father was fond of saying. His father had risked his life to save human colonies. He'd risked censure from the Guild by courting Irikah, and even more that he'd never known about. He'd done what he thought best to support his new family, even though it meant he risked his own life time after time. He'd done only what he was trained to do, not knowing there were other options. And through it all, he'd kept that silly, childish mug.

The question came out before he actually thought about it. "Did you keep anything of hers?"

Thane turned around and put his hand in his pocket. He withdrew a silvery pendant, a crescent cradling a pearl. He handed it to Kolyat. "She gave me this when we first met and I asked for her forgiveness. I held it when you were born. It has always been with me." He fell silent, undoubtedly remembering that moment from his past.

Kolyat held it gingerly. The silver had a patina of age, but frequent handling had kept it free of tarnish. Kolyat felt an unexpected warmth as he thought of his mother. His fingers closed over it protectively, and he sent a prayer for her soul to Kalahira. With some reluctance, he handed it back to his father. Unable to continue talking about his mother, he switched topics. "Shepard will be upset that she missed you."

His father answered with a wry smile. "Undoubtedly. I am none too happy with the thought, either, but if there is a chance that Dr. Solus can help, I cannot pass it up."

"I hope he can," Kolyat said, and he absolutely meant it. He had only recently made peace with his father. Somewhat to his surprise, he had realized that he wasn't ready to lose him again.

Thane's lips twitched in worry. "Do not place undue hope in this, Kolyat," he warned. "My disease is far progressed, and Dr. Solus offers no guarantees."

"I know," Kolyat sighed. "I could come with you," he offered.

Thane shook his head. "You are needed here. I will be..." He stopped abruptly and stared off into the distance. Then he brought his gaze back and stared directly at Kolyat. "No, there is a good chance that this is goodbye, my son."

Kolyat winced at the words. "I don't want it to be," he said defiantly.

Now it was Thane's turn to sigh. "Neither do I. I'm sorry I left things so late, Kolyat, and grateful that you have allowed me the chance to repair our relationship."

Kolyat stared at the floor. If this was the last time they would speak, he couldn't leave things unsaid. "Dad, I'm... sorry for everything I said when we met. I'm glad you didn't give up on me."

"Never!" Thane replied forcefully as he reached out to put his hand on Kolyat's shoulder. "I know I made mistakes, but family is always worth fighting for. Never forget that, Kolyat."

"I won't," he promised. There was an awkward moment where the two looked at each other, not knowing what to say. As Thane said, it was highly likely that he would die on Sur'Kesh, and this would be the last time they would see one another. Kolyat had no words for the occasion, and apparently, neither did Thane.

Kolyat shuffled his feet and was caught unaware when his father pulled him into a hug. "Be strong," his father said softly, but all Kolyat could think was that even now, his father was the strong one. His father's arms came up to circle him, and suddenly he was nine years old again and depending on his father for support. How could he ever measure up to the man in front of him, who for all his admitted mistakes was still the strongest man he'd ever known?

All too soon, Thane stepped back. Kolyat felt embarrassed, but his father's face showed nothing but love. "I'll pray for you," Kolyat said, although it felt entirely too inadequate for the moment.

"Thank you, son," Thane said gravely. "Take care of Hama. You have the skills, and I know you have the character."

Kolyat ducked his head as he answered. "I will.  _Ashte il-remont,_  Dad." He turned and walked so fast that he was almost out of the apartment before his father answered in kind.

It wasn't until the next day that he reached into his pocket for something and discovered his mother's pendant. "That sneaky bastard," he said without heat. Thane must have slipped it in there yesterday. His fingers closed around it, and he bowed his head in a quick prayer. He was on his way to pick up Hama and escort her to Arashu's temple. That would be a more fitting place to offer his prayers.

* * *

The Normandy was headed in to dock at the Citadel, and for Joker and the rest of the crew, it couldn't happen soon enough. Shepard had been storming around the ship for the past twenty four hours in a foul mood, and although she never took it out on anyone personally, the Normandy was too small of a space for an angry Shepard.

Not only had she missed Thane, she had been peremptorily summoned to the human embassy as soon as she set foot on the Citadel. "I don't have time for this shit," she muttered under her breath for the umpteenth time that morning. "Joker, how much longer til we dock?" she yelled down the gangway.

"About two minutes less than the last time you asked, Shepard," he yelled back. She grumbled under her breath and headed back to her cabin. There was no time to do anything other than paperwork, so she might as well finish it up before they docked.

The Normandy emptied out in record time once it was docked. They only had twenty two hours in port, but that was plenty of time for the crew to blow off some steam. Shepard wished she could join them. Instead, she dressed in the sleek suit that Kasumi had picked out for her when they started their diplomatic tour and wished she could wear her armor instead. It had gotten precious little use the last couple of months. Maybe she'd spend a few hours at the Spectre shooting range later today. That would be better than nothing, she thought as she walked by and gave it a longing glance. Diplomacy first, shooting later, as one of her war college instructors was fond of saying.

* * *

Shepard left the embassy with mixed emotions. On the one hand, she'd had to explain herself and the data on the Reapers yet again, and convince yet another Councilor that working with the geth was actually a good idea. On the other hand, Councilor Padmanabhan had actually listened to her and asked intelligent questions. That was infinitely better than dealing with Udina's condescension.

There was another wrinkle she was still trying to process. Councilor Padmanabhan had made it clear that if Shepard wanted any cooperation from the Alliance, she needed to make a gesture of goodwill, and the Councilor told her exactly what would be required. She would have to take onboard an Alliance officer as a liaison who would make regular reports back to Alliance HQ. It wasn't quite blackmail, but close enough to make Shepard grind her teeth. The only saving grace was that the one they offered up was someone that she needed. She glanced at the data pad with Specialist Samantha Traynor's personnel jacket: electronics specialist who would also take over yeoman duties that Kelly had performed as well as logistics that Miranda had managed. It would significantly lighten Shepard's burdens, which was the only reason she hadn't snarled at Padmanabhan as she walked out. With a sigh, she sent a note to EDI to allow Traynor on board and then put it out of her mind.

She was sad that Anderson was gone. Reassigned to Earth on the pretext of working on human-turian relations. Over the next couple hours, she stopped into most of the offices in the Presidium embassy section, since she was now on a first name basis with most of the Councilors and Ambassadors. Kolyat was off doing something in Zakera Ward, but had offered to meet her for dinner. Bailey was still as gruff as ever, and they shared their mutual grievances at having to work with the prima donnas of the political world.

Finally, she was done with the meet and greet and headed to Tayseri Ward to a dive she used to frequent. It was run by a couple of retired Alliance grunts and was the unofficial hangout of the N7s when they were on the Citadel. It was there that she'd made arrangements to meet one of her graduating class counterparts.

Sure enough, Shozo Endo was hanging out at the pool table, running the table and taking a naive asari for all she was worth, by the look of things. She watched in amusement as the asari threw her cue on the table in anger. Moving in, she picked up it up and reached for the chalk. "Pay up, honey, and let the big kids play."

Endo flashed her an irreverent grin and tossed the cue ball at her. She caught it without looking away from the asari, who started to show her biotics. In response, Shepard loosed a ripple of dark energy at the same time as Endo's jacket just happened to open enough to show his heavy Carnifax pistol at his side. The asari looked around at the numerous off-duty Alliance personnel, thought better of it, paid up and left in a huff.

"Christ, Endo, you look like a sleazy journalist from the twentieth," Shepard remarked as he racked the balls for a new game. He was wearing an ill-fitting black jacket over a white shirt with a loosened skinny black tie. His shirt was unbuttoned at the top and looked like he'd been wearing it for a couple of days. He had a scraggly line of a beard along his jawline, and a devil-may-care attitude that came from growing up in the Tokyo slums. A dented black Fedora finished off his look. His easy laugh covered a deadly and often pitiless soldier, though. His nickname, the Butcher of Torfan, was well-deserved, although she'd often thought that their positions could have been easily reversed, just by a change in orders back then.

"And you look like a wanna-be CEO, Shepard. Good to see you, too." He stepped back and gestured for her to break.

She snorted as she took off her jacket and tossed it over a nearby chair. She ordered a beer and walked around the table. "You've never been able to grow a beard, Endo. Why do you keep trying?" She lined up her shot and broke the table with a satisfying smack, dropping the two ball into a side pocket.

"Why do you keep trying to play politics, Shepard?" he countered as she dropped the four.

She shrugged. "Like I told you over mail, someone's got to try and save the galaxy, and I don't see anyone else stepping up to do the job." She took a moment to consider her options, then lined up a tricky bumper shot on the ten.

"No fair," Endo complained as the ball dropped into the pocket. "Who knows what sort of cybernetics Cerberus planted in your head. You've probably got a computer up there lining up your shots."

"No such luck," she told him. "They messed with plenty, but not my brain."

"That you know of. So you heard about Udina?" he asked.

She nodded as she frowned. She hadn't left herself with any good shots. "Heart attack, I heard. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy," she said with an evil grin. She didn't have time to feel guilty about being happy over one timely death. "Dammit." Her ball bounced off the pocket, and she stepped back to let Endo have his turn.

He grinned rakishly and dropped two balls with one shot. "Show off," she muttered. He only grinned wider and moved to take down the next one. "So you're still working with Cerberus?" he asked.

"Yeah, although I think of it more as a partnership. I'm trying to screw him as much as he's screwing me." She signaled for another round for each of them.

"I don't know, Shepard. From what I hear, the guy on top is as brilliant as he is ruthless. I admire that, but are you sure you know what you're getting into?" He sank two more in quick succession.

"I don't have any choice, Endo." She hated the plaintive tone that crept into her voice. "I don't see the Alliance stepping up to pay my fuel and crew bills. The Council's not helping. He's the one who funded me to take out the Collectors."

Endo lined up his last ball and sank it easily. "I saw the mission reports. That was a hell of an op, Shepard. And now you've got the turians and salarians on your side."

"I talk a good game and have a lot of evidence on my side. It was enough to convince a couple of people in the right places."

"More than a couple, I'd say," he said cryptically as he sank the eight ball.

"Oh?" She had just enough time to see his eyes dart to someone behind her, and as she turned, a hard right cross hit her in the jaw. "What the fuck!" she yelled as she prepared to smash her pool cue into her attacker. At the last second, she recognized the bleach blonde hair of their final classmate, Rina Savickas, and pulled her punch. Rina grabbed the pool cue and twisted it to the side.

"That was for working with Cerberus, Shepard," she spat.

"I'll give you that one," Shepard grudgingly allowed as she rubbed her jaw. Rina's hatred of Cerberus was infamous ever since her squad on Akuze had been wiped out by a thresher maw and Rina had come across evidence implicating Cerberus. "Just for the record, I wasn't too keen on it either," she told the angry woman.

"Let's get this straight right now, Shepard. The only reason I'm here talking to you is because of what I discovered in the Bahak system." Rina grabbed the closest beer bottle and drained it, not caring who it belonged to. Shepard rolled her eyes and ordered more beers for them.

Endo put the pool cues away, and they migrated to a table. "So you're the one Hackett tapped to take on that rescue mission?" Shepard asked.

Rina nodded and put her combat-booted feet on the table. Endo growled and shoved her feet to the floor. "Christ, woman. You were born in a colony, not a barn. I grew up on the streets, and even I have better manners than you."

Shepard ignored him. "What happened?"

"What happened?" the blonde snarled. "I'll tell you what fucking happened. I found one of your fucking Reapers. That Kenson doctor? She was trying to wake it up and use it to open the Alpha relay and let those monsters through. That thing was trying to get in my mind!" she yelled as she banged her bottle down on the table. Shepard looked around to see if anyone was paying attention, but the general noise level was already so loud that no one could hear them.

Rina downed the rest of her bottle. "You know what else? I had to fucking drive an asteroid into the relay to stop them!"

Shepard blanched. No one had ever blown up a relay like that, but she'd read studies in war college that hypothesized the effects. They weren't good. "What happened?" she asked, dreading the answer.

"I blew up the fucking system! That's what fucking happened!" Rina shouted. "Three hundred and fifty thousand batarians dead! Fuck this. I need something stronger." She stood and made her way to the bar.

While she was gone, Shepard looked to Endo for confirmation. He was paler than usual as he nodded. "She found me when she got back from the Alpha relay. She told me what happened, then drank herself blind for a week. You know she has no love for batarians after Mindoir, but knowing that she's responsible for all those deaths really sent her into a tailspin."

"Jesus," Shepard breathed as she sat back in her chair.

Endo nodded and finished off his beer. "When she came to me, we talked, when she wasn't shitfaced, and decided your Reapers must be real. That's why I arranged to meet you here."

Rina came back with a drink in each hand. They looked like doubles, and she tossed the first one back in one go. "What did Hackett say when you got back?" Shepard asked her.

Rina snorted and picked up her second drink. "Bastard tried to patronize me. Said they'd hush it up, but then the batarians found out the Alliance was involved in destroying the relay. Hackett told me to report to Earth for a trial. Said they'd clear me, that it was all just a formality to appease the batarians."

"I see you're not on Earth."

"I told him to fuck off," Rina said as she finished her second drink. "Resigned my commission. He wants me to go to Earth, he's gonna have to drag me there. I'm not going to let them put me on some sort of farcical trial just to appease the goddamn batarians."

Shepard's eyebrows climbed into her hairline. Hackett had lost not one, but two N7s in the space of a couple months. He must be royally pissed off. "Good for you, Rina," she said and she meant it. The three of them had been through hell together for years, working through missions and watching other N candidates wash out along the way. They'd sworn to always have each other's backs, no matter what happened. "So what now?" she asked the blonde.

Rina laughed, the sound hard and brittle against the background noise. "Heard you're hiring, Shepard. Need an out of work N7?"

"Make that two," Endo said with a grin as he leaned in. "I resigned this morning."

"No shit," Shepard breathed as she looked between them. Then she laughed out loud, delighting in the absurdity that life was throwing her way. "Well, I could desperately use some strike team leaders. How do you feel about killing Reapers from the inside?"

"If they're anything like that Object Rho abomination I saw in the Bahak system, I'm all for killing them any way I can," Rina said fervently.

"Good. Hope you like Omega, because that's where I'm training. Better get used to working with aliens, too."

Endo shrugged. "Long as they follow orders, I don't give a shit what they look like."

"Even rachni?" Shepard said, grinning wickedly at the expression on both their faces.

"Are you fucking kidding me, Shepard?" Rina asked, clearly hoping it was a joke.

She shook her head. "Cross my heart, hope to die. Met the Queen, and she's offered to commit ships and brood warriors."

"Rachni and Reapers. Any other legends you plan on dragging out of the closet?""

Shepard grinned. "If I find Santa Claus, you'll be the first to know."

Endo gave a sigh of resignation. "Ah, hell. It's not like I ever planned on collecting my pension anyway. When do we start?"

"I'll take you to Omega tomorrow," Shepard offered.

Rina held her glass up in a toast. "The three Musketeers, together again and til the end!"

"Cheers!" echoed the other two.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Orchidellia, my beta reader who gives me great ideas, advice and feedback.


	40. Smoke and Ashes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard finally gets to visit Thane. Feron and Kasumi run into a snag in their investigation.

_To: Krios, Thane, Polgao Facility, STG Research, Sur'Kesh_  
_From: Shepard (Spectre), Normandy SR2_  
_Priority: Alpha (Spectre/Council)  
_ _Security: Alpha (Spectre/Council)_

_I wish I could still be mad at you for leaving the Citadel before I could see you, but you're not the only one who grasps at slim chances. Tell me how Mordin's treatment is going. I don't remember anything that happened to me until I woke up to find the facility under attack. I hope your treatment goes better than that!_

_So much has happened that it feels like I can barely remember what happened yesterday. Lately my life has been a series of unending meetings. I've eaten at so many diplomatic dinners that I think I may need to buy a larger pair of pants. I wish I could get through to the quarians. I've spent far too many days with the Migrant Fleet talking to the Admiralty. I swear even the asari don't talk as much as the quarians. You wouldn't believe how upset they are about EDI's daughters. Well, given their history with the geth, you might. Still, you'd think I was installing AIs in their suits and liveships instead of in the turian warships. Speaking of which, Boudicca has settled into the turian dreadnaught, Tempus, but you probably already knew that. I love her new avatar. I'm glad the turians upgraded the holoprojectors to allow the AIs to display human forms. Oh, and turian, too. Have you talked to Garrus' daughter, Enelde, yet? They really do take after their parents. I've never seen someone so interested in weapons systems. She outdoes her father. I'm so proud of my little girl, all grown up into a dreadnaught. Okay, I admit that it still seems a little odd to me, but I'll adjust. I send her messages every day, just like with you._

_Miranda's reports from the Collector Base have been odd lately and I haven't heard anything at all in the last couple of weeks. I'm not keen on taking time to go back to the Collector base, but I'll have to if I don't hear from her soon._

_The rachni queen delivered on her promise. Her daughter is living on Omega now and coordinating the rachni fleet. As soon as we get everyone's translators updated, we'll start training with rachni, turian, and asari fleet maneuvers. I dropped Endo and Savickas off at Omega. They're going to start training strike teams to take down Reapers from the inside. You should have seen their faces when they met the rachni queen! But it's the rachni ships that have the best chance of closing with the Reapers, since they're so fast and maneuverable._

_...I hate that I have to say 'the best chance.' It implies that not all the ships and teams will survive long enough to even get the chance to board a Reaper. I've known Endo and Savickas for years. They're like family. Closer, maybe. The thought of sending them on those missions...well, it's what I have to do, and they know the odds as well as I do. It still doesn't make it any easier._

_I can't wait until I actually see you and talk to you in person. Besides, this bed is awfully lonely without you in the middle of the night. I miss touching you and intimacy, but I think I miss having someone to talk to even more. The couple of times we managed to talk in real time just aren't enough. I need someone to talk me down sometimes, and Joker and Jacob just can't handle my insanity like you can._

_We'll be at Sur'Kesh in three days! I'm sure I'll annoy Joker no end asking 'are we there yet?' (Human cultural reference you'll probably have to look up.)_

_Sorry this is so short, but I've got a hundred mails to answer, and even having a new yeoman on board isn't all that much help when every diplomat wants the impossible or needs to have their head forcibly removed from their fourth point of contact. A yeoman just doesn't have the chutzpah to manage that._

_Until then, all my love._

_Your siha._

* * *

Mordin met her at the dock. "Hey, Professor. It's good to see you again, but you didn't have to come all the way out here to see me," Shepard said with a grin and a bounce on her toes. She couldn't wait to see Thane again, and seeing the professor was the icing on the cake.

Mordin gestured toward a ground car. "Here for business, Shepard, not pleasure." He blinked a couple of times, then added, "Although nice to see you as well."

"So what brings you out of the lab, Mordin? I thought I'd have to sabotage your electron microscope in order to talk to you," she teased.

"Important matters," he answered. "Concerns krogan genophage. Made breakthrough in genophage tailoring that may be of use to you in gaining krogan support in upcoming war."

Shepard stopped and stared at him in shock. "Mordin, did you cure the genophage?" Trust a salarian to drop a bombshell like that in the first ten seconds of conversation.

Mordin didn't realize she'd stopped and had to backtrack several steps. "No, no, always humans tempted to incorrectly generalize. Changed the expression of the phage. Not a cure." He gestured impatiently toward the car, and Shepard started walking again.

"Um, what's that mean?" she asked. Shepard got into the car and sighed in relief. The atmosphere was hot and muggy, and just in that short distance, rivulets of sweat had started running down her back.

"Used Maelon's data as a jumping off point. Original genophage indiscriminate. Some even say heartless. Only controlled for number of live births, not conceptions. Altered genophage to limit pregnancies, but now most pregnancies will carry to term. No more miscarriages. Should bring krogan population into parity with rest of galactic races." The salarian doctor had a smug smile on his face, and Shepard thought it was well earned.

Shepard's mind was going a million miles a minute. No longer would the female krogan be confined and have to suffer endless miscarriages just for the rare chance to birth a live baby. She could see it unfold in front of her - a race given their future back and with a chance to rebuild on their past and turn it into something even greater. "Mordin, you're amazing! It's so much more than that. You've just liberated half the krogan race! You can give them hope again!" She thought of Wrex and Grunt with babies of their own and smiled widely.

She glanced back at Mordin, who didn't seem nearly as happy about the news as she was. Well, perhaps he had already processed it and moved on. "Does that mean you're coming with me on the Normandy? Fortuitously, my next stop is Tuchanka to speak to Wrex. Having the cure come from a salarian would help a lot in easing tension between your two races. I know things are tense, but I know Wrex and I can make him understand."

Mordin shook his head regretfully. "Work here too important to leave, Shepard. Thane too important."

Shepard turned toward him eagerly. "How's he doing? I haven't heard from him in a couple days, and was wondering if the comm relays were backed up here. It's annoying that he has to use the public access priorities," she complained.

"Shepard..." The professor paused in that way all doctors did when they were about to deliver bad news. An icy ball of dread formed in her stomach that spread quickly through her limbs. Suddenly the last two days of no email took on an ominous feeling.

"What is it?" she asked through lips that felt numb. "Is he...?" She couldn't bring herself to say the word.

Mordin shook his head. "Thane lives. In medical coma."

"What? Why?"

"Lazarus treatment exceptionally difficult on patient. Pain levels too high, interfering with nervous system. Couldn't provide adequate palliative without compromising Lazarus treatment. Coma only solution." It was all too much for her to take in, but Mordin kept talking. "Operative Lawson kept extensive notes on your resurrection. Mentioned problems with severe pain that woke you ahead of schedule."

A fuzzy memory of Miranda hovering over her surfaced unexpectedly, accompanied by the memory of intense, muscle-rending pain that made her clench her fists so hard that her nails bit into her palms. "Yeah, it did," she muttered. She looked back at the doctor. "Will he live?"

He paused, and she braced herself for the worst. "Uncertain. Thane not dead yet, so considerably better off than you were. However, Thane's organs severely damaged by disease. Trying to repair damage before body gives out." His expression softened, and he reached out to take her hand. "There is still hope, Shepard."

"I want to see him." She barely recognized her own voice, cold and devoid of any emotion.

"Of course."

Mordin led her to Thane's room in the hospital and left her alone. The room was dimly lit, warm and dry, presumably in consideration of his disease. Thane was lying in a hospital bed with a sheet drawn up to his waist. He was on a ventilator, and an IV tube provided medicine and hydration. Several strange and somewhat ominous medical devices surrounded the bed. She slowly walked up to him and picked up his hand. His skin was cool and dry and loose against the bones. She couldn't tell if it was the low light or if his skin really was that dull and pale. "Oh, Thane," she breathed. She didn't know if she should cry or rage.

Her lover was lying in a hospital, kept alive with tubes and wires - everything he'd said he didn't want. Yet there was still a chance - a tiny, desperate, fragile chance that Mordin could work a miracle and bring him back from death's door.

"Can you hear me?" she wondered aloud. She recalled hearing somewhere in the past that you were supposed to talk to people in a coma. "I miss you so much. You have no idea how many times I've wanted to tell you something that's happened, only to realize that you're not there anymore. Who else would laugh with me when Liara takes over another company from Cerberus? I don't think Jacob would appreciate the joke. And you're always so much more patient than me. I know you would have helped me smooth things over with the quarians and a lot faster, too. They're still mad at me and refuse to commit as long as the geth are my allies. Stupid!" She realized she'd been squeezing his hand and quickly laid it back down and stroked it softly in apology.

She brushed a hand against her eyes, feeling the wetness gathering on the corners. "I hate them right now, you know," she confessed in a whisper. "If they hadn't been so obstinate and prejudiced, I could have been here sooner. I could have talked to you before..." She paused to sniffle and catch her breath. "I should have walked out on them. Next time, I won't be so generous, I can promise you that. Not when they cost me time with you."  _My last chance to see you,_  a tiny thought wailed in the back of her mind. She sighed and decided to talk about something happier.

"I talked with Kolyat last time I was at the Citadel. He's fine. He's growing into quite the young man. You should be proud. He even hinted that he was serious about Hama, although he refused to commit to anything, saying he was 'stuck in purgatory for the next three gods-forsaken years.' His words, not mine. He grumbles, but I think it's been good for him. He was curious about how and why I joined the Alliance, so I told him the story behind the legend," she said with a laugh. "He wanted to know if I ever regretted joining, and I told him no. Serving has been the highest honor I could have had, and I'm still a little sad that I resigned. I think he was curious about the differences between the Alliance and the Compact. He certainly has no love for his own people's arrangement with the hanar. That came through loud and clear. Did I mention he's not one for subtlety? We get along pretty well in that respect. I think he's finally forgiven me, both for punching him and for being his father's girlfriend.

"I'm off to Tuchanka next. Did you hear what Mordin and the STG did? They cured the genophage. Well, modified it, but same thing. With this, I can get Wrex to commit ground troops to the war."

She continued talking to him, confiding her hopes and fears, all the things she'd kept private from everyone else. Her only answer was the rhythmic hiss of the ventilator. She talked until she was hoarse and the light streaming through the window took on the orange cast of sunset. She talked until she finally ran out of things to say and simply sat at his side as night fell. He hadn't moved once. This wasn't the stillness of sleep that she occasionally caught him in. There was nothing to indicate that Thane still inhabited his body. She was down to faith and hope and found them to be of dubious comfort, but right now, she would take any comfort she could get.

She leaned in and kissed his forehead. "You remember your promise to me," she whispered. "You fight, you hear me? Come back to me, Thane."

The next morning, she met with Mordin and the STG and left with the modified genophage cure for the krogans. Before she left the science facility, she made one last stop in Thane's room to leave him a token of hers. She knew he didn't need it with his memory, but it made her feel better to know that something of hers would stay with him.

For his sake, she bowed her head and whispered a prayer. She was sure her god wouldn't listen, but maybe his would. "Arashu, if I am indeed your siha, please listen to me. Please bring him back to me. I may be your warrior angel, but I need him. He is my strength and my love. Please don't make me do this alone."

It was probably just her imagination, but for a moment, she swore she felt a warm breeze blow through the room. She decided to take it as a sign of hope, although it didn't make it any easier to walk out and leave her lover to his fate.

* * *

Feron hated the prothean ruins with a passion that was only surpassed by his hatred of the hanar who worked there. In spite of its protestations of being overworked, the Elder Researcher still managed to find time to hover over them repeatedly as he and Kasumi explored the furthest reaches of the ruins. When the Elder Researcher was gone, it was replaced by an endless parade of junior researchers who never gave their face names. Each of them seemed to take their cues from the Elder Researcher and had attitudes that ranged from apathetic to hostile.

A week ago, the Elder Researcher had admonished Feron for allowing his assistant to disappear. He'd had to sit through two hours of the hanar droning on about the dangers of the ruins and how irresponsible it was for outsiders - a human, no less! - to potentially disturb a pristine prothean find.

Feron found the hanars' approach to be slow, plodding, tedious, and boring to the point of making him want to destroy an entire room just to get back at them. He'd been warned that a repeat of Kasumi's disappearance would cause them to be banned from the ruins, so Kasumi had been very cautious in her clandestine explorations over the last few days. Now, however, she was nowhere in sight and hadn't been for over an hour. He sensed the junior researcher with them was beginning to get restless.

Another half hour passed, and Feron poked about in the dimly lit cavern he was currently exploring. Glyph was recording everything, but didn't have much to say in his analysis. He hoped Liara could find something in all this. The junior researcher was beginning to flash annoyance, and Feron started plotting distractions to give Kasumi more time.

Just then, she appeared out of the shadows. As always, her hood was drawn up to cover her face, but unlike most days, there was no smile on her lips. Instead, they were drawn together into a flat, worried line. She came so close to him that he could feel her body heat radiating against him. "Feron, we need to go," she whispered urgently.

"Why?" he whispered back.

"Later. Just tell them I'm sick." Up close, he caught the faint smell of salt water coming from her and saw the faintest outline of her footsteps that were even now evaporating out of sight.

Turning toward the hanar, he said loudly, "We need to head back to the mainland. My assistant is ill." He caught hints of relief as well as annoyance and suspicion in the young hanar, but he had never bothered to learn even the limited spectrum of hanar flash speak that one could see without eye modifications.

"This one will lead you back to your flitter," it agreed and turned to lead them back to the lift that would take them to the main level. As they walked, Feron cast a concerned look at Kasumi. Every once in a while, she shuddered visibly, and sometimes she would shake her head as if trying to rid herself of a troublesome insect.

Their guide flash spoke rapidly to the hanar that would fly them back to the mainland. Kasumi got into the back seat while Feron sat next to the pilot. Feron's scales twitched and his frill inflated unconsciously. Something was very wrong, and he couldn't put his finger on it, but he had been in danger too many times not to recognize when his life was at risk.

The attack came suddenly. Without warning, the pilot stabbed at Feron with its venomous tentacle tips. Feron shrugged his shoulder up and around so that the tips glanced harmlessly off his armored jacket. The pilot simply changed tactics and snaked two tentacles around Feron's neck and started to squeeze.

Feron jammed his hands between his neck and the hanar's tentacles to save himself from being suffocated, but that meant he couldn't reach his gun. He struggled to keep the hanar from crushing his throat, but little by little the hanar kept constricting. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw more tentacles waving in the back seat. There was a loud buzz that made the hanar jump and relax its grip on his throat a fraction. Feron gulped in air and redoubled his efforts to unwind the tentacle around his neck, but it was both strong and slippery.

Suddenly the cabin was filled with a brilliant white light so piercing that it caused him physical pain even as it blinded him. Apparently it hurt the hanar even more, because its tentacles slackened around his neck enough that Feron could finally pull them loose. He reached for his gun, but before he could pull it free, there was another buzz, and the sickening smell of burnt flesh filled the cabin.

"Feron, you okay?" Kasumi gasped.

"I can't see!"

"Flash grenade," she explained quickly. "Sorry I couldn't warn you. Your sight should come back in a few minutes.

"The hanar?"

"Dead."

"What in the double hells is going on, Kasumi?" he demanded as he rubbed at his eyes and grimaced in pain. All he could see was white with random stabbing flashes of meaningless color.

"I found something, Feron."

"Obviously," he growled. "What?"

"Reaper artifacts."

"What?" He twisted in his seat even as he belatedly realized he couldn't see her.

"Not only that, but they were still active. I can still hear them in my mind, Feron. They're alive. They're talking!" He could hear the fright and revulsion in her voice.

"Amonkira's curse, human, what do you mean alive?"

"Just that, Feron. They're still active. They're putting out commands. 'Trust us. Do what we say. Be ready.' They're indoctrination devices, Feron. That's what wrong with the hanar!"

He felt her shove the dead hanar to the side and lean over the pilot's console. "I'm rerouting us to go directly to the space port. We have to get off of Kahje, Feron. I hoped I wasn't detected when I found their cache, but obviously someone saw me. That's why the pilot attacked."

He shook his head in denial. "That's not possible, Kasumi. If the hanar are indoctrinated, it would be obvious to everyone."

"Not all of them," she said in a tone that implied he was missing the obvious point. "Those ruins have been controlled by the Oligetti for thousands of years. It's how they rose to power. They wouldn't share their knowledge willingly. It was only when the hanar joined galactic society that the Oligetti were forced to give up some of their power. Now that the Reapers are coming back, I bet the artifacts have been more active and trying to force the Oligetti to take over, to pave the way for Kahje to fall to the Reapers."

Feron's mind ticked over her points. It was plausible, but what if she was reading too much into it? What if there was another explanation? "But why would the protheans put Reaper indoctrination devices there?"

"How should I know?" she answered sharply. "Maybe they were studying them. Maybe they were indoctrinated themselves. Maybe they put up a warning sign that the hanar couldn't decipher after fifty thousand years. Whatever the reason, I don't want to stick around and find out. I want to get off planet and let Shepard figure out it out."

That was the smartest thing she'd said yet, and he wholeheartedly agreed. "We can head directly to my ship. Hopefully I'll be able to see by then."

It was a short flight to the spaceport. Feron could see shapes and movement, but fine details were still muddled. " _Chikushō_ ," Kasumi muttered.

"What?"

"Looks like company waiting for us. Drell and hanar both. Hold on," she ordered.

"Why?" Feron asked as he grabbed for a handhold just as he was jerked hard to the side. "Kasumi!" He saw the horizon tilt crazily as she made a sharp turn away from the spaceport. "Kasumi, don't tell me you're going where it looks like you're going!" he said in alarm.

She didn't reply, and Feron flinched and held on for dear life as she brought the flitter down hard on an empty beach. "Let's go," she said as she opened the door and hopped out. Miraculously, it wasn't raining. "I don't suppose you have anyplace we can go to hide for a while, do you?"

He followed close behind her, stumbling now and then on an unseen rock. "A couple. Maybe. Not enough. I never planned to come back here, you know," he muttered.

"Let's just hope we can get off of here again," she responded.

"And here I thought you were supposed to be the cheery one," he said with a curse as he stubbed his toe on yet another unseen rock. To make matters worse, the rain came back. He hated Kahje!

* * *

The Illusive Man savored his cigarette as he contemplated the roiling surface of the star his station orbited. Eventually, the cigarette burned to ashes and he stubbed it out. Opening up his gold-embossed cigarette case, he pulled out the last one and lit it up. A tumbler of Earth's finest whiskey sat at his elbow, the ice slowly melting into it.

He was saying goodbye to this stage of his life. It had been glorious. Rising up from obscurity through numerous hardships to become one of the most powerful men in humanity, and then the galaxy. Senators begged his favor. Generals gave him respect. Humanity owed him for their rapid rise in galactic politics, even if most of them never knew it. A single command from him could mean life or death for an individual. In fact, he had accomplished the impossible by bringing Shepard back from the dead and felt it his due to take credit for the countless colonies and humans she'd saved.

Now it was time to move on. Soon he would command control over not just a single powerful organization, or even over humanity. No, he had his sights set on controlling the gods of the galaxy themselves. Through them, he would ascend to godhood himself and ensure that humanity would take its rightful place as rulers of the galaxy, answering only to him.

He didn't believe in regrets. They wasted time, and his was too valuable. Still, he did spare a moment to be sorry that he couldn't leave Miranda in charge of Cerberus. He had spent a long time grooming her for just this moment. It was a shame that she had fallen prey to Shepard's charisma. Still, it was a risk he had accepted when he assigned her to Shepard's mission.

Miranda had already made several escape attempts and once had nearly succeeded. He considered having her executed before he left, but decided that she could still be of use after the Reaper war was over. By then, Shepard would be dead or co-opted, and Miranda would come to her senses.

He had one last command to issue before he left. Opening up a screen, he sent an order to Leng to pick up Oriana and deliver her to her father on Horizon. She was the price Henry Lawson had demanded for his help, and he had agreed readily. It was a paltry price for Lawson's expertise, and he dismissed it as soon as the order was sent. Lawson was making tremendous advances in understanding Reaper technology and communication through his experiment on Horizon. He needed more test subjects, and the Illusive Man had already made arrangements that would funnel refugees to Horizon as soon as the Reapers appeared. That would guarantee Lawson a nearly endless supply of experimental subjects, which should spur his research even faster.

His final cigarette dissolved into smoke and ashes. He picked up his tumbler and drained it slowly and deliberately. When it was empty, he stood and walked out of his command center without a single look back. It was nothing more than an empty chrysalis he had outgrown and deserved as little consideration.

He was destined for godhood.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Orchidellia, my beta reader who gives me great ideas, advice and feedback.
> 
> Chikushō means "Oh hell!" in Japanese.


	41. Duplicity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kolyat and Hama get caught up in Milar's scheming.

Kolyat dropped his head back against the theater seat in exasperation at the horrible plot holes in the movie he was watching with Hama. "Tell me again why we're watching this?" he hissed at her, wincing as the turian cop delivered a truly awful line.

Without taking her eyes from the screen, she elbowed him in the ribs. "Because it's fun," she whispered back.

"Does brain damage from bad acting count as fun?" he replied a little too loudly, earning glares from a pair of asari maidens who looked like they were still teenagers.

"Oh shush. It'll get better when the explosions start. That's the only reason to see this anyway," she whispered.

He watched a while longer, but when the human cop took a bullet in the arm and then picked up a rocket launcher one-handed and blew up a tank in one hit, he growled, "Oh come on. There's a limit to the amount of belief that can be suspended."

Hama shushed him again, eyes on the screen and obviously enjoying the mindless spectacle. Kolyat closed his eyes and wished he could forget ever seeing this movie. Maybe if he worked very hard at never thinking of it again...He sighed. Who was he kidding? Hama loved these stupid movies and would undoubtedly want to talk about it and drag him to the next one. And no matter how much he complained, he'd go along willingly.

He was saved from the overblown romantic arc that was as shallow as it was unbelievable by an urgent message on his omni tool. He gladly opened it up, and when one of the asari maidens hissed at him to turn it off, he made a rude gesture in her direction and kept reading.

The message took an exceptionally long time to open, and when he checked, his omni tool was downloading a huge amount of data. He furrowed his eyebrow ridges when he saw the message was from Milar.  _What now,_  he wondered.

_Kolyat, I've just put your life in danger with this data. Take Hama and go to ground now. Get off the Citadel as soon as possible, preferably to your father. He'll know what to do with this data. I'm sorry for endangering you, Kolyat, but there are very few I can trust now. Xeche is back, and they'll be after me for uncovering this data. I can't help you now. You're safer away from me. You can still trust the hanar ambassador and Berdu, but stay away from the security staff. Use the data disc I gave you. I've given you what you need to unlock it. Take care of Hama, and may Arashu keep you both safe._

A sense of disbelief fell over Kolyat as he read Milar's message. She said he was in danger, but not how. Would someone really be willing to kill him for possessing whatever this was? He tried to open the attached documents, but they were encrypted. Of course they were, he thought in annoyance. Always fucking secrets with her.

His first instinct was to take Hama and run, but where? Think, he told himself. What would his father do? Just like that, he had his answer. He grabbed Hama's hand and pulled her to her feet. "Come on, we're going," he said in a tone that left no room for disagreement.

"What's so important?" She tugged half-heartedly at his hand, but he didn't let go. "We're only half-way through the movie," she complained as he pulled her through the aisles and out into the lobby.

Kolyat gave thanks for small favors as he answered. "Your mom sent me a message. We've got to go."

She pulled her hand free, but kept walking beside him. "Important?" She, too, was used to her mother's cryptic emails and assignments.

Kolyat answered with a slight shake of his head as he headed for a mass-transit train. "We're in trouble. We need to hide."

Now she did stop. "Trouble? What did you do, Kol?"

He grimaced as he wheeled around and grabbed her hand again, pulling her forward. "Why do you always think it's me?" he griped. "Your mom found something. Look, I'll show you, but I don't want to do it here in the open. We need to get somewhere safe." He practically pulled her off her feet to follow him.

"Kolyat, is my mom hurt? Is she in trouble?" Hama's subvocals were dissonant with distress and fear.

"I don't know and yes. And she's put us both in trouble, too." Kolyat spotted the mass-transit entrance. The next train was due in five minutes.

"Kol, stop! What kind of trouble? I've got to talk to her. I have to go home!"

Kolyat stopped and put his hands on her shoulders. "Hama, we can't. She explicitly told me to get you someplace safe and that wasn't with her."

Hama's fingers flew in a panic over her omni tool as she attempted to contact her mother. "Kolyat, I can't reach her! She's offline. She's never offline! Kolyat, what if she's hurt? Or...or dead?"

Kolyat abandoned his normally aloof public manner and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tight. He let the comforting harmonics thrum deep his chest and felt her hold him just as tightly. "Hama, think about who your mother is. She's more than capable of taking care of herself. She's got contingency plans on contingency plans. If she's offline, it's because she thinks it's safer that way. We have to take care of ourselves now." He felt her tears soaking through his shirt and rubbed slow circles on her back. "Come on. I know a place to go. We'll figure out the next step once we get there."

She let him coax her onto the train, and he found a pair of seats near the back. On the ride, he showed her the message from Milar, and in hushed tones they talked about what to do next.

They got off at the exit closest to Kolyat's apartment and stopped at a public access terminal. He entered his request and prayed to all the gods that the Normandy was near enough to a comm buoy for real-time communication.

His prayers were answered when the call connected, and a moment later, Shepard's sleepy face appeared on the screen. "Kolyat?" She yawned. "What's up?"

"We need help, Shepard. We need to get off the Citadel as fast as possible." He couldn't help glancing over both shoulders, afraid that assassins were going to spring from the nearby coffee shop.

"What's wrong?" she asked sharply. All traces of sleepiness evaporated instantly from her expression.

"Milar uncovered something. I don't know what, but she sent all the data to me and told me that it put me in danger. She said to get it to my dad, that he'd know what to do." He couldn't hide the obvious frustration in his voice. Why wasn't he good enough to figure it out on his own? Why hadn't she just told him what this data was that he was carrying?

Shepard shoved her sleep-tangled hair back out of her face impatiently and scowled at something off the screen. "Have you heard from your father lately?"

He shook his head. "No. Not for a few days. Why?"

She ignored his question and asked her own instead. "Where are you? Do you have someplace safe to go? What about Bailey?"

"No, Milar told me not to trust anyone. I've got a place in mind, but I don't want to say it out loud."

She blew out her breath in annoyance. "Damned paranoid politics." She must have seen something on his face. "Not you, Kolyat. Look, we're at Tuchanka right now. It'll take me about thirty hours to get back to the Citadel. Go find your safe spot and sit tight. Call me in thirty hours, and I'll come get you. Don't try to come to the docking ring by yourself." She glanced at Hama standing next to him. "Stay safe," she said softly. "EDI, wake Joker up and tell him to..." Shepard cut the transmission, leaving Kolyat looking at a black screen.

"What now?" Hama asked apprehensively.

"Now we hide," Kolyat told her. He took her hand and led her down the same path his father had weeks ago. The whole time, his back was twitching with nervous energy and anticipation of an attack that never came.  _I'm just being paranoid_ , he told himself. But then he thought of Milar's note, and he couldn't see her sending that sort of warning without cause.

They reached the old apartment building where his father had his safe house. They both looked around nervously before hurrying inside. His father had modified the security protocols to give him access to the apartment. When they were both safely inside, Kolyat finally allowed himself to relax. "Looks like I owe my dad an apology," he muttered as he walked into the kitchen.

"For what?" Hama wanted to know.

Kolyat shrugged in embarrassment. "I didn't like the idea that he had these places set up all across the galaxy. Now I'm using one to hide from the bad guys. Come on, I'll show you around," he said with a sardonic twist of his lips.

The tour took less than a minute. "Wow," Hama breathed as Kolyat opened the hidden weapons closet. "This is like something out of a movie. I mean, you told me about your dad, but seeing this..." She gestured helplessly at the weapons on display.

"Yeah, that's about how I felt, too, the first time I saw it." He headed back into the main room and flopped down on the couch. Suddenly, thirty hours felt like a lifetime. They had cut off their extranet communication, and there was no entertainment screen in the tiny apartment. They were on their own.

They filled as much time as possible with talk, but it always kept coming back to Milar and what had happened to her. They took turns guessing what the encrypted data was while Kolyat spent some time trying to open it up. He eventually let Hama take a crack at it, but it was beyond both their skills, especially without access to the net.

He switched to the data disc she'd given him earlier and tried again to decrypt it. "What in the double hells did she mean when she said I had what I needed to unlock it?" he groused.

Finally Kolyat gave up and headed to the kitchen. "You've got your choice of two different kinds of freeze-dried dinners," he announced after looking in the cabinet. "Guess my dad wasn't much for variety."

Hama came over and plucked the box out of his fingers. "Oh, yummy," she drawled. "Look, it's good for another nine years, too."

Kolyat selected the other one, just because. They both looked unappealing to him, but he was hungry and willing to eat just about anything. "He probably bought it nine years ago."

Hama wrinkled her nose. "I was trying not to think about that possibility."

Dinner wasn't that bad, although the conversation was still halting and worried. Kolyat thought back to Shepard's question about his father and how she'd refused to answer him. Had she heard something that he hadn't? He worried that something had happened to his father, but surely the doctors on Sur'Kesh would have told him, right? Suddenly the meal sat heavily in his stomach. He pushed back from the table and paced around the small apartment.

"What is it?" she asked. He stopped and stared at the blank wall without registering what he was seeing. "Kol?" she prodded.

"Think back to Shepard's question if I heard from my father. When I asked why, she didn't answer. Why not, Hama?" He watched as her inner eyelids nictitated in remembrance.

"Something happened to him," she answered with a grim confidence. "Something she didn't want to discuss."

"Do you think...?"

She came up and twined her fingers through his. "I don't know, Kol."

"This waiting is going to kill me," he grumbled.

"Me, too."

The hours crawled by. In its own way, the waiting was as tiring as any of the shifts he'd worked. Hama must have felt the same way. He watched her yawn again and nudged her knee with his. "Go to bed," he told her.

"Don't wanna," she pouted. "Can't sleep anyway."

"So why are you yawning every ten seconds?" he pointed out.

She wrinkled her nose and kicked at his foot, but he easily dodged it.

"Go take a shower and go to bed," he told her again.

"You're not my mom," she retorted automatically and then her eyes narrowed in grief.

He stood up and held out his hand. "Come on. I'll tuck you in," he offered.

She eyed his hand for a moment, then glanced up at him. He caught a flash of orange in her black eyes that usually hinted at mischief being planned, but her expression was too somber for that. She laid her hand in his and allowed him to pull her to her feet. He led her into the bedroom and pulled the covers down. She kicked her shoes off and slid into the bed. When he turned to head back to the couch, she reached out and grabbed his hand. "Stay." After a moment she added, "I don't want to be alone right now. Just sleep with me."

Kolyat fought with himself. To be honest, he didn't want to be alone either, but he felt like the right thing to do was to sleep on the couch. He knew both of their parents thought they had a sexual relationship, and neither he nor Hama saw fit to disabuse their parents of that notion. But after seeing what his parents had gone through, the last thing Kolyat wanted was to accidentally become a father himself. Hama felt the same way, so in spite of their attraction for each other, they were taking it slowly. But he couldn't deny that he liked her. A lot. They'd kept things cool between them precisely because he hadn't let things get out of control. But now Kolyat could feel that sense of control slipping completely beyond his grasp. Both of their parents gone, on the run, and no idea what was going to happen next.

Hama read the indecision in his eyes. "Come here," she ordered and pulled hard enough to jerk him forward. He had no choice but to put a knee on the bed or topple completely on top of her. "Stop being noble. It doesn't suit you," she teased softly.

Still, he made them both wait a moment longer. "Then what does?" he demanded, looking down into her sunrise-colored eyes.

Her lips transformed into a smile. "Sarcasm. Pretending you don't care when every action you take says otherwise."

Kolyat snorted. "Obviously, you've never seen me at work."

She tugged again, forcing him to put his free hand down on the bed and lean over her. "I see more than you think, Kol. Now lay down."

He looked at her and finally laughed. He collapsed on top of her, causing her to lose her breath in one giant whoof, before he relented and rolled to the side. "You're impossible. Don't think I'm always going to let you order me around. I'm just feeling sorry for you tonight."

She gasped for air and poked him hard in the ribs, causing him to exclaim and rub the ache away. "You'll do it because you know I'm right more often than you are," she said sharply as she poked him back further so she could pull the covers down.

He kicked his own shoes off and slipped underneath the cool covers. "No. You just like talking about the few times you're right more often than I do. I'm a very modest man," he said in a prim voice.

She giggled. "No, you're a very anti-social man who hates to talk to people." She curled up next to him and used his shoulder for a pillow. "Seriously, Kol, this sucks and I'm scared, but I'm glad we're in it together."

"I know, Hama. It'll probably end up being nothing, and Shepard will be ticked that we made her leave Tuchanka early or something." He tried very hard to believe that.

"I want to see the Normandy," she said. "It sounds like a much cooler ship than the liner from Kahje to here." She yawned again and wiggled closer to him.

A half smile touched the corners of his lips, although she couldn't see it. "It's not like I saw a lot when I was on it. But yeah, it was pretty neat."

She mumbled something that he didn't catch. He squeezed her briefly and felt a gentle answering squeeze from her arm tucked over his stomach. "We'll make it, Hama. I promise."

He didn't think he would sleep, but the stress and worry from the day had taken a larger toll than he thought. He blearily looked around and realized they'd been asleep for almost ten hours.

That day went much as the previous one, until Kolyat thought he'd go stir crazy. To erase the tedium, he taught Hama how to hold and load one of Thane's pistols. They practiced all day, although Hama didn't particularly care for it.

As the time grew near to contact Shepard again, Kolyat went through his father's closet again. Since they'd been at the theater yesterday, he was only wearing casual clothes. Hanging in his father's closet was a long armored duster similar to the black one he usually wore. He tried it on for size, and it fit surprisingly well. He caught Hama trying to suppress a snicker. "What?" She shook her head, and he looked in the mirror. "It's red, isn't it?" he said in disgust as he caught sight of the red highlights on what had at first appeared to be a black coat.

She giggled and nodded toward the closet where a pair of matching red leather trousers was hanging. "Might as well complete the outfit," she said, not really trying to hold back her laughter.

He deliberately shut the door in her face so he could finish changing. He could hear her laughter clearly through the closed door and grumbled the entire time he was changing. A pair of sunglasses sat on a shelf and he tried them on just for the hell of it. He blinked in surprise when the targeting system came on.

He looked in the mirror again and was undecided. On the one hand, he felt strange wearing his father's clothes. On the other hand, they were heavy and fit well and were undeniably high quality armor that weren't quite disguised as typical drell leathers. The sunglasses added an air of mystery. Feeling a little goofy, he mimed pulling a gun and holding it out, looking at himself in the mirror. It was certainly a long way from his embassy uniform.

Hama grew impatient and knocked on the door. "How long does it take you to change, Kolyat? I wanna see."

He dropped his hand and stared at his reflection again. Was this the image of a man who could protect others? He chewed on the inside of his cheek. It would have to be.

He opened the door, and almost winced in anticipation of Hama's laughter. Instead, she smiled appreciatively. "Looks better with the whole outfit," she told him. "Although the sunglasses are a little much."

He took them off and held them out to her. "Try them."

"Whoa!" she exclaimed as she turned her head side to side to see the display change. "Okay, I take it back. They're perfect." She reluctantly handed them back to him, and he tucked them into an inner pocket. He pulled out his mother's necklace and Milar's data disk from his old pants and tucked them in with the sunglasses.

"It's almost time," he said. "There's a public access terminal two blocks down. I'll head out and call Shepard. You stay here."

She crossed her arms and tilted her head to the side. "I don't think so. You go. I'm going."

"Hama," he started, but she cut him off.

"Uh uh, Kol. I've lost my mom. I'm not losing you, too."

Kolyat muttered under his breath as he stomped too hard toward the door. "I'm just going two blocks, and I'll be right back."

"Don't care," she responded right behind him. "You're not leaving me behind."

She stayed close by his side as they walked the two blocks. Shepard answered as soon as he called. "I pulled some strings and got an early docking slot. Where are you?"

As he told her, the krogan next to her thumped his fists together. "It's been too long since I've had a fight, Shepard." She shushed him and nodded. "We'll be there soon. Hang tight."

Hama led them to a shadowed corner. He negotiated her into the corner and stood protectively in front of her. "I'm sick of waiting," he groused. "Seems like I've been waiting my entire life." He felt her hand rub along his arm, and almost unwillingly, more words tumbled out. "Waiting for my father to come home. Waiting to leave Kahje. Waiting to be released from 'community service.'"

She snorted and bumped up against him. "I'd say your waiting was over. Personally, I find waiting for Shepard to show up to be a little too nerve-wracking right now." She glanced out over the busy street, but neither of them had a clue what they were looking for.

It seemed like an eternity before he spotted Shepard's white armor coming down the street, followed by a young krogan and a dark-skinned human. She smiled tightly when they stepped out of the shadows. "Good to see you two again. Now let's get back to the Normandy. You can fill me in on what's going on while we move." She set a brisk pace back toward the main street.

In terse sentences, he relayed Milar's message and the encrypted data she had sent him. Shepard nodded once, her attention constantly scanning the environment. Kolyat noticed the other two were doing the same. "What are you looking for?" he asked.

"Smart money is that if someone is looking for you, they'd tail me and let me lead them straight to you. We might get lucky and whoever it is doesn't know about your relationship with me, but I wouldn't count on it." She didn't have a weapon out, but her hand hovered near her pistol.

"You should have let us meet you at the docking ring, then." Kolyat's tone was harsh, tinged with accusation and worry for Hama. He glanced at her and saw the nervousness she couldn't conceal evident in the way she glanced around. All the sophistication she tried so hard to cultivate had fled, leaving her looking like the very young woman she was.

"Too risky," she countered. "If someone had found you, you'd have no backup. Trust me, you're about as safe as can be with us." Kolyat thought of his father's stories of Shepard's adventures and was suddenly glad he was wearing armored clothing. He moved closer to Hama just as they arrived at the RTS kiosk. "Jacob, get us a car," she ordered.

"Aye, Commander." As the other human moved to the console, a shadow detached itself from the far wall and moved toward their group. Kolyat saw him first and stiffened in surprise. Shepard noticed Kolyat's reaction and interposed herself between them.

"Krios, I'm glad I finally found you."

"Captain Sokje," Kolyat acknowledged flatly. Now that the initial shock had worn off, he wasn't that surprised to see the head of embassy security confronting him.

"We've got a problem, Krios," the older drell said, sparing a brief glance at Shepard and stopping a deceptively short distance away. Kolyat didn't know what to say, so settled for saying nothing. Sokje continued, "You're mixed up in something that's way beyond you. I'm here to help you sort it out."

Kolyat felt Hama grab his hand and hold it tightly, but he didn't take his eyes off the tan and brown drell in front of him. Sokje wasn't wearing his embassy uniform. Instead, he was wearing the leather clothing most drell favored, including a short jacket. From the way his leather clung to his body, Kolyat deduced it was armored. Sokje evidently expected trouble.

"Thanks, but I've already got some help," Kolyat told him.

Sokje shook his head. "This isn't a matter for aliens, Krios. I need you to come back to the embassy with me."

"Why?"

"Milar sent you something she shouldn't have." Sokje's eyes flickered to Hama half-behind Kolyat. "I'm sorry, Seria. Your mother's done something very serious."

"Where is she?" Hama blurted out.

A look of disappointment crossed Sokje's features. "I was hoping you could tell us, Seria."

"What did she do?" Kolyat asked. He was furiously recalling everything he had read that Milar had given him and trying to figure out what was going on.

"Not a matter to discuss in front of aliens, Krios," the captain repeated with a narrowed glare at Shepard. She simply stood at the ready, weight balanced on her feet and hand near her weapon. Her stance said as plainly as words that he was allowed no closer.

Kolyat glanced at Shepard, but all her attention was on the other drell. "Make an exception," he said coldly.

Sokje considered for a long second before he answered. "We have evidence implicating her in a conspiracy to assassinate and otherwise remove from power several hanar politicians in an attempt to shift the balance of power in favor of Shepard's cause. We need the data she sent you, Krios."

"You think it's evidence of her guilt?" he asked.

The captain shook his head. "It's a list of hanar she intends to have killed. She's using you to get the list to her conspirators. You need to come with me, son," he ended with overtones of sadness in his voice.

He broke out into a cold sweat. That sounded exactly like something Milar was capable of doing. Yet again, he wondered what exactly she had sent him. And why have him take it to his father? Did that mean Thane was part of Milar's plot? He could believe that, too. Damn the Compact and everything it did to people!

Milar's warning about the security staff was loud in Kolyat's mind. He wasn't sure what was going on, but he'd much rather take his chances with Shepard than Sokje. "I'm not your son," he said, angry at the attempt to play on his youth and divide his loyalty. He took a step backward, pushing Hama back as well.

Captain Sokje looked disappointed. "You don't have a choice, Krios. Either come with me willingly, or I'll arrest you."

Shepard stepped forward, hand resting on her gun. "He's coming with me. They both are. Now back off."

"Car's here, Commander," Jacob said softly.

Rather than back off, the drell stepped forward to meet Shepard. They were nearly of a height and stared each other down. "This is an internal Kahje affair, human. Step aside."

Kolyat couldn't see her face, but the soft threat in her voice made his scales twitch in alarm. "I'm a Spectre. I just made it my affair. If Kolyat doesn't want to go with you, he doesn't. End of story. Kolyat, Hama, get in the car."

Two more drell drifted toward them. Kolyat recognized them from the security staff. Unlike Sokje, they had weapons out, although they were still pointed at the ground. Sokje tried again. "Krios, hand over your omni tool, and you can go. We just want to make sure no blood is spilled. On Kahje or here," he added, and the threat harmonics came through loud and clear. Kolyat wasn't sure Shepard could hear them, but given that her gun was out, it was a moot point. Next to him, the krogan primed his shotgun. He heard Hama squeak and jerked around to check on her, but it was only Jacob urging her to get in the car.

"Don't do this, Sokje," Shepard warned. "There are civilians around."

"Aliens," he said dismissively. "There's plenty more where they came from. This is more important. I can't let that data get off the Citadel."

Apparently the other two drell had crossed an invisible line, because Shepard's gun rose up right into Sokje's face. "Back off now," she ordered. "You do  _not_ want to take me on," she warned.

The more observant civilians nearest them started running away, which started a panic along the entire street. Through it all, Shepard and Sokje stared each other down. "One last chance, Krios. If you want to avoid bloodshed, hand over your omni tool," Sokje commanded as he looked over Shepard's shoulder at Kolyat.

Kolyat's heart was about to beat out of his chest. His omni tool suddenly seemed to weigh a ton as he glanced around at the people still trying to figure out what was wrong. Too many people were still nearby. If a firefight broke out, people would get hurt. Some might get killed. Was Milar's mysterious data worth that?

Without looking away from Sokje, Shepard said, "Decision's yours, Kolyat. But I suggest you make it fast."

Milar trusted him. She trusted him enough to put her own daughter in danger with whatever this was. He remembered what his father had said about her, that her sole goal was the advancement and protection of the drell. He didn't know what the data was, but he couldn't let it go back to Sokje after Milar had risked so much to get it to him. "I'm keeping it, Sokje."

"No. You're not," the other drell promised softly. Then everything dissolved into chaos.

Sokje brought his hand up and disarmed Shepard, sending her pistol flying across the street. All Kolyat could see was a furiously fast hand to hand between Shepard and Sokje before Jacob grabbed his arm and yanked him back toward the car and immediately threw out a barrier between them and the dark yellow drell to the right. All around them, people were screaming and running in all directions. He thought he heard Shepard cursing, but couldn't be sure over the crowd noise. He hovered half in and half out of the car with Hama crouched in the back with her hands over her head.

He heard the krogan's shotgun go off, then Shepard yelling something that sounded like 'Stop!' The krogan laughed so loud that Kolyat could hear him over the crowd and the next thing he knew, the krogan was charging the remaining drell. Even though he was being shot at, the krogan shrugged it off. The drell, Morontsi, one of Sokje's lieutenants, narrowly escaped being plowed to the ground. The krogan turned, roared and charged again. Kolyat saw Morontsi sight directly on the young krogan's eye, and before he realized it, his father's pistol was in his hand and he shot the drell in the back.

Morontsi dropped to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut, but the krogan only changed direction and charged toward Sokje, apparently unconcerned that he would most likely take down Shepard as well.

Kolyat suddenly realized he was still standing with his gun arm extended. He dropped his arm and whirled back toward Jacob, who was trying to catch the drell he was fighting in a biotic pull, but his opponent was too fast and kept eluding the human's attacks. He saw drops of red spill from Jacob, but the human didn't give any indication that he'd been hit. Instead, he fired back and managed to land a lucky shot on the drell's leg. Now that the drell was slowed, Jacob pulled him into the air and fired a killing shot while the drell hung helpless. Both he and Jacob turned their attention to Shepard.

The krogan had indeed knocked both of them to the ground, and now they were a knot of three grappling and throwing punches. Sokje was impressively strong and fast, but pinned down by nearly a ton of armored krogan, there wasn't much he could do. Suddenly all three stopped motionless, and Kolyat could see Shepard holding a combat knife to Sokje's throat. "Tell me why I shouldn't kill you right now," she hissed.

In response, he arched his neck up and pressed against the edge of the knife. "Because you're Commander Shepard, and you don't kill in cold blood," he rasped.

"You don't know me very well," she growled and pushed the blade a fraction deeper, opening up a thin line on his neck. "You threatened to kill someone under my protection. Unless you give me a very compelling reason why I should let you live, you're about to go to the sea."

Kolyat watched in morbid fascination as a slow dribble of blood flowed from Sokje's neck down her combat knife to pool on the sidewalk. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jacob walk over and check on Morontsi. Evidently he was either dead or no longer a threat, because Jacob came back to the car and stood watch against any other surprise assailants.

"We're an endangered species?" Sokje quipped.

Shepard snarled, but Kolyat could see her hesitation. He was sure Sokje could see it, too. "I'm taking them with me. You leave them both alone, or I will hunt you down and finish the job. Whatever Kolyat's got on his omni tool, I'll decipher. You go back and tell the hanar to get with the program. The Reapers are coming, and we need every resource we can get. Even you." In the blink of an eye, she reversed her knife and struck him hard on the side of the head, knocking him out cold. "Come on. Everyone in the car. Anyone hurt?"

Kolyat waited for Jacob to say something, but he simply slid in the back next to Hama. He thought about saying something, but the human caught his eye and shook his head.

"Kolyat, you and Hama okay?" He jumped and turned to face Shepard. His reply fizzled in his brain as he saw that her visor was cracked and the side of her face was swollen and turning an odd shade of purple. She reached up to touch her face and winced. "Yeah, you drell hit like fucking trucks." She pulled the visor off and tossed it at Jacob who caught it easily.

He crawled into the back seat, and Hama was practically sitting on his lap. He could feel the tiny shivers that went through her body, but she was uncharacteristically quiet. He was barely aware of Shepard navigating up and into the traffic. Instead, he kept replaying that moment over and over where he shot Morontsi in the back. The motion had seemed so automatic at the time. His father's lessons came to mind: draw, aim for center mass, and fire. It was alarmingly easy, and another drell was lying dead because of him. Kolyat felt his hand begin to twitch, and he balled it up into a fist until his fingers began to go numb.

Feeling as if he were in a fog, he followed Shepard and her crew onto the Normandy. He expected her to take him back to Life Support, but instead, she showed them into a lounge with a bar and a couch that folded out into a bed. "We'll set you up with some better quarters later, but you both look dead on your feet. You can crash here for now. If you need anything, ask EDI."

"Who's EDI?" Hama asked.

In response, a blue hologram flashed into existence. "I am EDI," it announced in a feminine voice. "I am the ship's AI and available at any time to assist you."

Shepard studied Kolyat, and he lacked the energy or drive to do anything other than stare back blankly. To his relief, she headed for the door. "Get some rest," she told them. "We'll talk later."

When the door closed, they were alone again, but so much had changed since they left Thane's apartment an hour ago. Kolyat put a hand on the observation window and stared out at the Citadel's arms stretching into the distance. It had been his home for nearly a year. He had entered it as an angry teenager trying to prove something to a father he thought dead. Instead, he'd been saved from his own bad decisions and was on his way to a new life and new career. Now he was leaving the Citadel a criminal and a murderer. "What are we going to do, Hama?"

She wrapped her arms around him and seemed to be seeking reassurance as much as giving it. "We survive, Kol."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Orchidellia, my beta reader who gives me great ideas, advice and feedback. Plus this chapter's title.


	42. One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kolyat and Hama have to adapt to life onboard the Normandy.

The request to enter their room came soon enough after they woke up that Kolyat suspected someone was watching them. Shepard entered wearing a casual pair of dark blue pants and a matching short-sleeved shirt. A vivid purple and green bruise stood out starkly on her face from her fight with Sokje yesterday. "Thought you two might like dinner and a tour," she offered.

A good night's rest had restored a good portion of Hama's bubbly nature and she smiled happily. "I've been wanting to see the Normandy for a long time," she told Shepard.

Shepard laughed. "Come on, then. It won't take long. It's not that big a ship, and unless you're an engineer, you probably won't be all that interested in the specs."

They started on the hangar deck. Kolyat noted with interest how every cubic meter of space had been purposed, sometimes twice. Besides the Kodiak, he saw a makeshift gym, weapons racks, a holographic shooting range, and various workbenches. A couple of crew were busy at various tasks but nodded politely as they wandered through.

They were formally introduced to Grunt and Jacob, peered in at the Tantalus core, and met Joker and EDI in the pilot's cockpit before Shepard took them back to the crew deck for dinner. "I bet you have a lot of questions," she noted as she started in on her dinner, something the chef had called beef bourguignon.

Kolyat poked at it and decided it was edible, although he didn't care for it as much as Shepard apparently did. He decided to start with the one that she had avoided earlier. "What happened to my father?"

Shepard put her fork down and looked at the wall instead of him. "He's in a coma."

"What's that mean?" Kolyat rasped.

She shrugged uncomfortably. "It means his life is hanging in the balance. I talked to Mordin earlier today. It's been six days and no change. The cybernetics are growing and networking, but Mordin just keeps saying the damage was severe, and he won't make any projections. Apparently, he was worse off than he would admit to me," she said with a hint of anger.

"I want to see him," Kolyat said, unconsciously echoing Shepard.

She looked genuinely sad as she shook her head. "We're headed to Aephus, Palaven and Omega," she said as she ticked them off on her fingers. "We can't make time for Sur'Kesh for a few more days."

Kolyat scowled and clenched his fist so tightly that his fork bent sideways. "You said his life was hanging in the balance. I want to be there!"

"You think I don't!" she snapped back at him, then continued on in a quieter tone as she saw some crew turn to look at them. "There's nowhere else I want to be right now, but I can't. I have obligations that are bigger than him or me. Besides, our presence won't make a difference one way or another," she added. "He's got Mordin there. If Mordin can't pull him through this, no one can." She picked up her cup and stared into the contents, but Kolyat could tell her mind was a million klicks away. "The turians are squawking about the economic costs and suspect the volus of taking advantage of the situation. I need to go to Palaven to sort it out."

"Can't it wait?"

Shepard snorted. "No. None of it can wait. The turians are threatening to stop ship production after they finish this dreadnaught. The volus are happily capitalizing on the economic churn right now, but I think the turians are right and the volus are fleecing a lot of contracts. Then I need to go to Omega and check on the fleet training exercises. I sent a couple of salarian Spectres there to train more strike teams as well as a couple companies of krogans. Don't even get me started on dealing with the Alliance. This whole thing is hanging together with magic tape and bubble gum, and one piece of bad news could knock everything down." She sighed and sank back into her chair. "I hate to say it, but I hope the STG finds proof of the Reaper fleet soon. I don't know how much longer I can sustain this."

"Why? Wouldn't proof be a good thing?" Hama asked.

Shepard shook her head again. "Not really. The STG can't see that far into dark space. If they spot the Reapers, we'll only have a few days at most before they're in the heart of the galaxy."

"Then I'll get a ship to Sur'Kesh when we get to Palaven," Kolyat announced.

"I really don't think that's a good idea," Shepard said.

"Why not?" Kolyat was getting tired of being second guessed.

"Because we don't know why those people are after you, how long their reach is, or where Milar is. You're a hell of a lot safer on the Normandy than you are anywhere else right now. I'd be remiss in my duties to both of your parents if I let you go out on your own."

"We're not kids anymore, Shepard," he said, what little there was of his patience beginning to fray.

"You're not skilled operatives, either, no matter what you want to think." She took note of the closed, angry set of his face and asked a question that cut him to the core. "How do you feel about killing someone yesterday?"

He was vaguely aware of dropping his misshapen fork as he unwillingly relived the fight. Once again he pulled the trigger and watched as Morontsi fell lifeless to the floor.

"That's what I thought," Shepard said grimly. "People like me exist so that others don't have to experience that. I don't know how it is for drell with your perfect memories, but I still remember in perfect detail the first time I killed someone. Do you think you could do that again, or would you be overwhelmed by the guilt of killing someone?"

"I..." Kolyat struggled to find the words, any words. He wanted to protect Hama and Milar and all those other nameless and faceless people out there, but faced with the reality of his actions yesterday, he was having trouble processing it all.

Shepard's voice was gentle when she spoke again. "Kolyat, not everyone is cut out to be a soldier, and that's a good thing."

"No, I want to do this. I have to do this," he argued. "You say there's a war coming, Shepard. I can't hide and hope someone else takes care of me. I want to be the one protecting others."

"Kolyat, this isn't like guarding doors at an embassy. If you pull the trigger, you have to intend for someone to die," she emphasized. "I and my operatives are hardened to it. We've been called sociopaths, and maybe they're right about it. Philosophers can debate the merits of it, but that's our job. We kill people who get in our way."

"Look, Shepard, I'm on the run from my own people. I have to be able to face them."

"You're safe on the Normandy, Kolyat."

He snorted his opinion about that. "For a short time, maybe. How long are you going to host us, Shepard? A week? A month? A year? Maybe you're used to living on ships, but I'm pretty sure Hama and I would go crazy after a few weeks. Where are you going to leave us? I don't fancy hiding out on some alien planet or pirate base. Milar gave me this data for a reason. I need to figure out what's in it and how to use it to protect us."

She sighed heavily and leaned back in her chair and covered her eyes with her hand. "This is so not what I needed right now," she muttered quietly, probably hoping he couldn't hear her. Too bad for her his hearing was excellent.

"So sorry to be such a burden to you, Shepard. Maybe you should have left us on the Citadel." Anger and sarcasm warred for dominance in his vocals.

"Like hell," she shot back. "You're family, Kolyat. Same goes for you, Hama," she said with a glance at her. "It's just..." she trailed off waving a hand uselessly in the air.

"Just what?" he asked as he stared her down.

She met his gaze levelly. "You're important enough that I'll devote as much energy to making sure you're safe as I will to any homeworld."

Kolyat fell back in his seat, nonplussed at her answer. He hadn't anticipated that. "Oh. Okay."

She sat back and considered them both. "You make some good points, Kolyat. Honestly, I don't have a place where I would consider you safe right now. Maybe Omega with some of my troops?" She phrased it as a question to see what his response would be.

He shook his head a vehement 'no.' "We'll stay here. Thanks anyway, Shepard."

The look she gave him felt like she measured him and found him wanting. He found it grating. "You're sure you want to stay with me? Before you answer, you should know I'll treat you like one of my operatives as far as training goes, and I'll expect your unquestioning obedience while you're with me," she warned.

Kolyat grimaced as he glanced at Hama. It wasn't like they had much choice. She nodded back at him. "I am."

She stuck her hand out to him. He was familiar with this human custom and reached out to take it. "Welcome aboard," she said, shaking Hama's hand next. "We'll get you geared up and started on a training program tomorrow. You'll need to adjust to the Normandy's schedule quickly, so don't stay up late tonight. Ask EDI to put you through to Professor Solus so you can check on your father. I'll talk to you more tomorrow." She shoveled the last few bites into her mouth and took her plate back to the galley where she exchanged small talk with the chef.

Kolyat looked over at Hama. "Guess I volunteered you, too," he apologized.

She bumped her shoulder against his in comfort. "Don't worry. If you can do it, so can I."

Kolyat looked around the Normandy's mess hall. "You know, Bailey used to have a saying that seems appropriate now. 'Out of the frying pan and into the fire.'"

"No, Kol," she disagreed. "We couldn't stay where we were. Do you really think Sokje would have let us go if you handed over your omni tool?" She reached out to lift his wrist. "We need to figure out what's on here that's so important people would kill for it. And maybe...maybe it'll tell us where my mom is."

"We'll find her," he said. "You think she's going to let us wander around unsupervised and with her precious data for long?" he asked, trying to tease a smile out of her.

It worked, at least for a second. "Not if she can help it. Come on, let's go see if we can find out anything about your dad."

Kolyat nodded, unable to speak past the sudden lump in his throat. They put their dishes back in the galley and headed to their room, and all the while he dreaded what he would find out.

Meanwhile, Shepard had her own list of worries, and annoyingly, those dealing with Kolyat and Hama kept coming to the top. Gear, training, dealing with Milar's damn message that started this whole thing. She sat at her desk, and it was only with great force of will that she wasn't on the comm with Mordin demanding an update every half hour.

Her denial of Kolyat's request to see Thane kept twisting around in her gut. She wanted to see him even more than his son did, and tonight the excuse of duty rang hollow. She was still convinced that ensuring planet and shipyard preparations were more important than Kolyat visiting his dying father. So why was this ominous feeling of guilt and wrongness hanging so heavily over her tonight?

Thane wasn't even conscious, she told herself angrily. He'd never know if she or Kolyat visited unless he miraculously recovered.

That annoying part of her brain that she sometimes hated responded that it wasn't for Thane. This was for his son, who, barring the Reaper invasion, would have a long life ahead of him.  _You're scared_ , the little voice in her head whispered.  _You don't want to accept the fact that he's likely going to die, and if you don't visit him again, you don't have to think about it_.

"Oh shut up," she said out loud, then groaned and buried her face in her hands. At this point, she thought she would actually welcome the Reapers, if only to give her something else to think about.

She looked longingly at her bed, but she was nowhere near tired enough to go to sleep. Not to mention that the nightmares had started to return without Thane there to keep her company. Shrugging, she got up and headed to the hangar bay for a little target practice. She knew better than to sit and stew and let her mind go to bad places. She laughed harshly to herself in the elevator. At least Dr. Chakwas would be happy that she wasn't drinking herself to sleep anymore. Maybe she'd practice with her rifle and challenge Garrus to a few rounds tomorrow after she picked him up from Aephus. Anything to keep from thinking about Thane dying alone in a hospital halfway across the galaxy.

* * *

The shipyard around Aephus was buzzing like a beehive, or so Shepard guessed. She'd never actually seen a beehive, but there certainly was a lot of activity out there. She stopped at a viewing port in the shipyard terminal to watch the activity, and smiled warmly when she saw the Tempus glide majestically past the outer terminal. It was a happy accident that they were both in port at the same time. Boudicca had spent considerable time analyzing the kinetic barrier program and come up with a more efficient algorithm. Unfortunately, it required more eezo and an upgrade to the hardware. She had just finished her upgrades, and they'd spent some time talking while the Normandy was docking at the station. Unlike EDI's specialization in electronic warfare, Boudicca was more interested in fleet strategies and protective devices, which was the main reason she ended up in a dreadnaught.

"Shepard!"

She turned and grinned happily. "Garrus!" Standard dress code for any turian military outpost was armor, so she couldn't exactly give him a hug, but she gave him a friendly punch on the arm.

"Thank the spirits of space and time you're finally here, Shepard," he said, mandibles flaring out into a grin.

"What? Tired of dealing with the Hierarchy so soon?" she teased.

"Soon? Shepard, it's been over six months!" he complained. "Take pity on me," he joked.

"What if I said I needed you to work some more of your magic here?" she asked with a wink.

He replied with a smirk, "Too late. I've already stowed my gear on the Normandy. You're going to have to pry me out with a crowbar at this point."

She couldn't wipe the stupid grin off her face. In spite of the incredible burdens she was under right now, somehow, just being around Garrus made it all seem a little easier to bear. "Wouldn't dream of it," she admitted as they started down the hallway to the command center. "Any new updates?"

"We're applying Boudicca's upgraded armor to every ship in dock, both here and the asari shipyard. Every ship in the combined fleet has a full loadout. Palaven is about halfway through its preparation for hardening civilian defense structures. Aside from the volus issue, things are going about as well as can be expected." He slowed down to catch her attention. "Fleet readiness is high, but we can't maintain it at this level for more than another three months. You might want to think about rotating ships and creating downtime," he suggested.

She grimaced and turned to look out another view port. "I talked with the STG this morning. They caught a blip, but electronic analysis gives it a ninety percent chance of a sensor anomaly."

"And the other ten percent?"

"The minority opinion suggests Reapers," she said in sharply pitched staccato words. "If it's accurate, the location puts them less than a week out from the furthest mass relay."

"What are you going to tell them?" he asked, jerking a taloned hand in the direction of the briefing room where the turian naval command was waiting.

There was a long delay before she answered. "Same thing I just told you," she said finally. "I'd rather respond to a false positive than get caught with my thumb up my ass."

"You're likely to spark a panic," he warned.

She shrugged without looking away from the viewport. "Maybe it'll spur them on to finish their defenses."

Garrus clicked his mandibles together in a disapproving sound. "Turians might manage okay, but humans haven't forgotten the First Contact war. If they think their homeworld is in danger..." He trailed off, leaving the potential damage unspoken.

"And what am I supposed to do, Garrus? I've been yelling about the dangers of Reapers for years now, and when the first hint that they might be out there surfaces, I should say, wait, maybe I'm wrong?" The annoyance came through loud and clear.

"No," Garrus responded softly. "I'm just saying actions have consequences. But we both know that."

Her shoulders slumped as she thought of all the consequences she'd faced over the years. "Yeah, we do." She felt his hand grip her shoulder to convey some comfort. She stared out the view port a while longer before turning around and looking up at her best friend. "Let's go. Time to scare the hell out of everyone."

* * *

The turian naval command didn't want to hear what she had to say. She tried to talk to the new human Councilor, but she had rudely dismissed Shepard's warning and flatly refused to pass anything through to Earth. Hackett wouldn't take her calls. Anderson only looked at her sadly and turned away, shaking his head in disappointment that his brilliant protégé was so obviously losing her mind to paranoid delusions.

"Listen to me," she screamed. "They're coming!" She was in the Council chambers, looking up at them, but they all looked back as if contemplating a child throwing a fit.

"I am your salvation through destruction." Harbinger's voice echoed around the chamber as the monstrosity that used to be Saren leveled his pistol at the Councilors and shot each one in the head. He turned around and aimed at her. Automatically she aimed her weapon and fired, but the clip was empty. She dodged Saren and grabbed frantically for a fallen rifle that looked suspiciously like Garrus', but when she fired, it, too, was empty.

She was forced to retreat down the hallway with the Reaperized Saren in close pursuit. Where were Garrus and Wrex, she wondered desperately. The hallway was littered with weapons, but every time she stopped to grab one, it was empty, and each time, Saren got a little closer.

She ran until she thought her heart would explode out of her chest. Finally she burst into the Presidium, which was eerily empty. Overhead, Sovereign glided closer. Its weapons lit up, and ship after ship was vaporized. It fired again, and this time the Citadel itself flew apart, sending her tumbling out into space.

Again and again Sovereign fired, carving the Citadel up into scrap and sentencing millions to an agonizing death. Her breath rattled harsh and fast inside her suit as she looked around for something to grab onto. A large wall section floated past and she flailed wildly to try and catch it, but zero gee inertia dictated that she pass within a fingers-width of it and sail on by.

"We're coming for you, Shepard," Joker said. She saw the sleek shape of the Normandy slip through the debris only to power up and arc away at the last second as Sovereign fired at the ship. "The Reaper appears to be targeting the Normandy," EDI announced calmly.

Shepard's heart felt like it stopped beating for a long second. She opened her mouth to tell EDI to get out of here, but couldn't say the words. The fear of being stranded in space again, of dying for a second time was too strong. "Please don't leave me alone," she wailed.

A shadow fell over the Normandy. It was the Tempus, Boudicca's ship, moving in to provide cover for the Normandy, but even the dreadnaught's shielding was no proof against the Reaper weapon, and the Tempus exploded into billions of fragments. Her daughter died right before her eyes. "No!" she screamed.

Joker piloted the Normandy next to her and she reached out in a futile effort to will herself onboard the ship. Sovereign fired again, and EDI followed her daughter into death. Jagged debris from the Normandy speared through her protective suit. This time, not just air, but blood bubbled out into space, turning into frozen red droplets drifting away from her.

She felt the familiar lack of oxygen and gasped frantically for a few more life-sustaining breaths even as her vision faded to black.

Shepard sat up abruptly and drew in a huge, shuddering breath of air. "Lights to full!" she ordered breathlessly. Bright white light flooded the cabin and washed away all the shadows, but she could still feel the specter of death clinging to her back. She knew it was just a nightmare, but she jerked her shirt up to see for herself that no metal was protruding from her abdomen. "Oh Christ, oh shit," she sobbed as she drew her knees to her chest and buried her face in them.

"Shepard, do you wish me to send for Dr. Chakwas?" EDI sounded concerned, even though this was the third time this week Shepard had awoken from a nightmare. This one was worse than the others, though, and she couldn't stop crying. This time it wasn't just her dying; it was all the others. And what would the next nightmare be like? Would she have to watch Garrus die? Or Thane?

She didn't register the presence of anyone else until she felt the bed give under the weight of someone sitting down next to her. "Shhh. It's just a dream," Dr. Chakwas soothed as she rubbed Shepard's back.

"No," she shook her head and answered with a hiccupping cry. "They wouldn't listen to me. They're all going to die, Karin. Billions of them, and I can't stop it."

Karin wrapped an arm around the distraught woman. "You've already accomplished two impossible feats in your lifetime, Shepard. Three, if you count coming back from the dead. You knew this would be the hardest one, and yet, look what you've already accomplished. You've actually gotten governments to listen to you and make preparations. They may not be as far as you'd like, but I don't think anyone else in the galaxy could have done as much as you, Shepard."

She turned toward the doctor and cried on her shoulder. With no one else would she have ever shown this much vulnerability and this much fear, but the older woman had been a constant and calming influence with Shepard for years. She was more of a comfort than her own biological mother had ever been.

Karin held her until the worst of it was over and Shepard pulled back sniffling and wiping at her eyes. "Sorry," she started, but the doctor cut her off. "Everyone needs a good cry every now and then," she said as she handed Shepard a tissue. "Want to talk about it?"

Shepard shrugged uncomfortably. "I'm sure you already heard."

The doctor nodded. Ship's gossip meant that within hours of leaving Aephus, everyone on board knew that Shepard's warning had been disregarded. The meetings on Palaven hadn't gone any better, especially since there had been no confirmation from the STG, and it was looking more and more like a sensor glitch.

"I see the headlines, Karin. 'Chicken Little' is one of the kindest things the news is calling me."

"Being a leader is never easy," Karin told her. "Especially a prophetic leader. No one wants to hear bad news, and yours is about the worst there is. But if you don't have the strength of your convictions, sure as God, no one will ever listen to you. I know it's hard, Shepard, but you have to keep going."

"I'm so tired, Karin," she admitted quietly. "And it hasn't even started yet."

"I know, Shepard. But we'll always be here for you. Why don't you schedule a visit to Sur'Kesh?"

Shepard's eyes started to well over with tears and she buried her face back in the doctor's shoulder. "Shhh, don't assume the worst, dear. Hope for the best."

"I'm trying, Karin, but it's so damn hard." That seemed to be the mantra for everything in her life right now.

Eventually, she pulled herself together enough that Chakwas was comfortable leaving her alone. She glanced at the clock. 0428. Too early for anyone else to be up, and too late to attempt more sleep.

She took a cold shower to shake away the lingering traces of her nightmare and wake her up completely, then headed to the galley for a protein shake. Dr. Chakwas was busy in the Med Bay, but the rest of the ship was still sleeping. She wandered down to the hangar bay. She'd been thinking about moving the armory down there where it was closer to the shuttle and wanted to discuss the logistics with EDI and Jacob later. She didn't expect anyone else to be here. Certainly, she didn't expect to come upon Kolyat doing his morning calisthenics.

She only caught a glimpse of him finishing a few moves before he saw her exiting the elevator. He stopped abruptly, looking somewhat embarrassed. He was still wearing that red leather outfit he'd had on when he and Hama had first boarded the Normandy. His jacket was tossed carelessly across the back of a chair. "Don't let me stop you," she told him with a wave of her protein shake.

He shook his head. "Nah, I was done."

"Early bird?" she asked, but he only looked puzzled. "I mean, are you typically an early riser?"

He nodded once. "Always have been. I wanted to get this out of the way before anyone else showed up."

She saw right through him. He still wouldn't meet her eyes as he reached for his jacket. "You're going to have to get over the loss of privacy, Kolyat. The Normandy's a small ship, and we all know everything about everyone.

He didn't respond, at least audibly, but she felt an itch deep in her ear that suggested he was grumbling in a range she couldn't hear. "How's the training with Jacob going?"

"Don't you already know?" he asked without looking up.

"I know Jacob's opinion. I'm asking for yours," she said calmly.

"It's fine," he replied shortly as he shrugged into his jacket.

One corner of her mouth twitched in a reluctant grin. "Fine, hm? Care to elaborate?"

"No."

The grin spread a little wider. "You're sure about that? Because I can always find out some other way."

"It's fine!" She could tell by his response that her needling was getting under his skin. Time to break him down a little bit.

"Okay. I've always been fond of the saying that actions speak louder than words anyway. You can show me." She set her protein shake down and moved to the center of the sparring area. She had to bite her cheek to keep from laughing as his eyes got big.

"Now?"

"You got anywhere else to be?"

She watched as his eyes darted around the room and he searched for an answer that would get him out of this. "You're not wearing any armor," he tried.

She shrugged carelessly. "I'm not going to need it," she said pointedly. It stung him, just like she intended. "Get over here and show me what you've learned." She rubbed at her ear as another subvocal grumbling from him made it itch. "And stop that," she ordered. "If you have something to say, say it out loud where I can hear it."

He stopped midstep, surprised and embarrassed at being caught out. She narrowed her eyes and pointed at a spot in front of her. Reluctantly, he moved to the spot and fell into a ready stance with his hands up. She just stood there, hands at her sides, waiting him out. It only took a few seconds before he shifted uncomfortably, wondering if he was doing something wrong. "Aren't you going to..."

She lunged forward and punched him in the chest, easily getting through his defenses. It staggered him backwards, and he rubbed his chest in shock. She returned to her waiting state, hands back at her sides. "I was already fighting. You just didn't recognize it. You didn't see the tension in my legs and arms, did you?"

He looked again, taking note of her quickened breathing and the way her fingers were tense and curved into a knife edge, even though they were hanging at her sides. "Don't assume that every opponent is going to come at you screaming and yelling. The most dangerous one is the one you don't even recognize as an enemy. Try again."

This time he moved much more warily as he came close. She let him sweat for several seconds before she lunged forward in the exact same attack. This time, he blocked as he fell back and threw a right cross that she easily deflected. Her leg came up and smacked him in the shoulder and sent him sideways into a workbench. He quickly turned and threw a kick of his own. She dodged like smoke and spun inside his reach with an elbow headed for his stomach. This time, he was able to dodge the elbow, but he completely missed the fist headed for the side of his face. "Ow!" he howled as he staggered back. Shepard darted behind him and before he realized it, her arm was wrapped around his neck with a finger jabbed into his ribs. "Bang, you're dead," she said and let him go.

"You're faster than Jacob," he muttered as he rubbed the side of his face.

"And a krogan charges harder. Deal with it," she told him in a matter of fact tone. "I try never to grapple with a drell. Get in, get out. Don't let them take you to the floor. Keep krogans at a distance. If you close with an asari, go for the soft areas. Same with humans." She wandered over and picked up her protein drink. "You're too nervous about hitting me. I'm just a human, Kolyat."

He snorted. "Yeah, right." He rubbed his jaw. "And stop hitting me here," he grumbled.

Now she laughed outright, much to his chagrin. "No promises." She finished her drink and moved back to the sparring section. "Come on. Let's run through a few moves."

Even though he didn't have any choice in the matter, he complied willingly enough. She ran him through a basic series of drills and sparring matches, although she held back to his level. Once he got used to the idea of sparring against her, he loosened up. He was a decent enough fighter, but it was obvious he'd only had a year or so of training. He had the basics down, but had trouble improvising outside of a few familiar moves. Still, she saw promise in him.

After another hour or so, she relented and called for an end. They sat side by side on the stack of crates. She'd worked up a decent sweat, and Kolyat was trying desperately to hide how tired and blown out he was. "Not bad, Kolyat. We'll match you up against Jacob, Garrus, and myself in regular rotation so you can learn to adapt to different styles and opponents. Plus I'll talk to Jacob about adding some more weapons practice for you and Hama both."

She saw his shoulders droop minutely and knew what he was thinking. "Just think of it as boot camp, Kolyat. Part of the price of serving on the Normandy. Besides, the sooner we get you trained, the happier we'll both be. Why don't you head on up and grab some breakfast." She wrinkled her nose. Thane's son had the same spicy scent, but it was much sharper and more acrid after a couple hours of exercising. "And a shower," she added.

He scowled and mumbled something at the floor, and her ears itched again. "What?" she demanded.

"I said it's not going to do much good. I've only got this one outfit." He steadfastly refused to look at her when he admitted that.

"Oh! Crap." Between all the fuss and fervor with the turians and the STG signal, she hadn't even had a chance to talk to Traynor and tell her to get Kolyat and Hama settled in better. "Let me see what I can do," she promised before she headed back to her cabin.

When Thane had moved into her cabin, he'd brought his clothing, too. When he left for the Citadel, he'd left several things behind, and she'd refused to put them into storage out of an unadmitted superstition that if she kept his clothing here, he'd come back to her. Now she stared down at the drawer that held his things. Kolyat was about Thane's size. Carefully not thinking about it, she swept up everything and grabbed a few of her own casual clothes for Hama.

Walking into the port lounge, she dropped the pile of clothes on the bed. The one and only bed in the room where she'd been lodging a teenage couple for the past several days. The same room that held a stocked bar. She closed her eyes and imagined Thane's disapproval when  _(not if)_  he found out.  _Right_ , she told herself.  _New quarters for them both. New separate quarters._  "Here," she told them. "Hama, these are too big for you, but they should suffice until we reach Omega. Kolyat, those are..."

"My father's," he finished for her. "Why...? No," he said, holding up his hand. "I don't want to know. I don't really want to think about why you have my father's clothes lying around. Just...thanks, Shepard."

She couldn't tell which of them was more embarrassed, so she just ducked her head and walked out as fast as she could to find Traynor.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Orchidellia, my beta reader who gives me great ideas, advice and feedback.


	43. Hold Back The Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kolyat gets tapped for his first mission.

Hama was practically vibrating with excitement as Jacob finalized the fit on her new armor. He'd explained that it was actually a set that belonged to an old crewmember of the Normandy, Kasumi, and that she was close enough in size to make it work. Finally, he handed her a tactical cloak and showed her how it went on.

Shepard walked into the armory and gave her an appraising look. "How's it feel?" Hama grinned widely back in reply, making Shepard laugh out loud. "I see," the Commander said. "You remind me of when I got my first armor fitting. Thought I was a total badass, along with the rest of my training platoon. Then the drill instructors took us out and showed us just how little we actually knew. Let's head down to the hangar deck, and we'll see if you're still smiling in a couple of hours."

When they exited the elevator, Kolyat was practicing with a rifle under Garrus' expert tutelage. His eyes flickered to Hama, earning himself a growl and a rough smack on the back from Garrus for allowing his attention to wander.

Hama followed Shepard and Jacob to the sparring area. "It's too bad there aren't any infiltrators on board to help you refine your skills, but we can teach you the basics," she said with a gesture between herself and Jacob.

Jacob didn't bother trying to hide his amusement. "When was the last time you seriously tried to be stealthy, Shepard?"

She shot him a good-natured glare. "I almost made it out of Hock's mansion without having to shoot anything."

"That's not the way Kasumi tells it."

"Kasumi's not here. Okay, Hama, here are your power readouts. That's going to be your biggest challenge - managing your power. This suit is lightweight, which means it doesn't have much stopping power. It'll stop light caliber weapons and provide some protection in hand to hand, but your job is mainly to avoid being seen." They spent several minutes going over the basics, but since Hama couldn't actually see the results of her actions, they had her practice stealthing around the cargo bay, and then reviewed EDI's tapes of her attempts.

"Here," Jacob pointed out. "See the glimmer? It really stands out in the bright light and against the smooth walls. You need to be aware of your background. Try it again."

After an hour, Hama was having trouble containing her frustration. "Why don't you just let me fuzz the cameras?" She was good at that, and had already pinpointed at least three of the cameras in the hangar deck.

"Because you're not just fooling the cameras," Shepard told her, just as frustrated with her lack of progress. "You have to fool real eyes first and foremost. They're the ones with the guns. Besides, jamming the cameras is a sure fire way to get people hunting for you. Try it again, and this time move slower."

Hama couldn't quite keep the irritation from showing on her face or posture as she turned with a flounce and activated the cloak. "I can still see you!" Shepard shouted at her from halfway across the deck. Hama growled deep in her throat and slunk behind a workbench. She stayed motionless for nearly a minute, then dropped to the floor and slowly crept toward the shadows of another bench.

Suddenly something hard smacked into her head, making her see stars even though she'd had the lightweight cloak over her head. There was a metallic clang as a wrench fell to the ground next to her. "Ow! What was that for?" she yelled as she decloaked and stood.

"To make a point. Once someone knows you're there, you need to change tactics. Go an unexpected way, lay a trap, bring out an attack. Just waiting and creeping away is probably the worst thing you can do."

Hama scowled and picked up the wrench and threw it back. Embarrassingly, it sailed far wide of Shepard. She yelled one of the turian curses Kolyat used when he was mad, then felt embarrassed again when Garrus turned to look at her.

Jacob intervened. "Let's try something different," he suggested. At Shepard's raised eyebrows, he nodded toward the sparring floor. "Infiltrators are at their most dangerous on a crowded battlefield. There's too much going on to easily keep track of them. That's when you can pick your enemies off one by one from the edges of the battle."

Shepard stepped back and crossed her arms over her chest. "You're suggesting that she try to sneak up on us while we're sparring and what? Take one of us down?"

Jacob shrugged. "Maybe not that, but she could try and tag us on the back. Come on, you remember AIT, don't you?"

She snorted. "I'm not sure she's ready for advanced infantry training when she's still learning hand to hand boot basics."

"I can do it," Hama proclaimed. "I can!" she added when Shepard just looked unconvinced.

In the face of their combined desires, Shepard finally gave in. "Fine," she said, throwing her hands up. "We'll try it."

Jacob nodded encouragingly at her. "Cloak and once we're sparring, sneak in and tag one of us on the back. Try not to get caught between us," he added with a warm smile. Hama nodded back, encouraged by his attitude. She stepped to the edge of the mats while Shepard jumped a few times to warm up. Shepard faced off against Jacob and as soon as they engaged, she cloaked and ghosted around the edge of the sparring zone. They kept circling one another, making it much harder to close with them without getting an unintentional elbow to the face. She tried hard to slow her breathing down so she could concentrate on the time remaining in her cloak as well as figure out how to get in there and tag one of them. Jacob might be easier; he was a little broader and moved a tad slower, but her pride insisted on getting Shepard. She had to show the Commander that she wasn't just a spoiled kid and she really could take care of herself.

She waited until they exchanged a flurry of blows that were all blocked. She danced forward, then stumbled backward even faster as Shepard unexpectedly turned toward her, just missing her with a kick headed toward Jacob. Her readout vibrated against her wrist, warning her that it would soon need to recharge. She had to make a move in the next few seconds. She gulped a deep breath of air and jumped forward, half expecting to miss. Instead, her hand planted flat in the middle of Shepard's back, and a huge grin spread over her face. She did it!

The next thing she knew her feet were flying out from under her and she was falling backward. In the blink of an eye, she landed heavily on her back and all the air whooshed out of her lungs. She was hazily aware that Shepard was the one who had kicked her feet out and had taken her to the floor. Her head thumped the floor dully as Shepard pulled her hand out from where she had cushioned the initial fall to the floor. "What happened?" she mumbled.

There was a self-satisfied smirk on Shepard's face as she stood and offered Hama a hand up. She took it and was yanked hard upright, which only served to make the muscles in her back complain more. Those mats weren't nearly enough cushion for the fall she had taken. Instead of answering her, Shepard turned to Jacob. "She needs more hand to hand work. She needs to be a lot more comfortable in a combat environment."

"I'll take care of it, Shepard."

"And figure out if she can handle a rifle or not."

"I will, Shepard," came the patient reply.

"And..."

"Shepard," he cut her off. "Leave her training to me. I know what I'm doing."

She chewed on her lip as she looked between them, then over to Kolyat and Garrus on the target range. "Fine. I've got some messages I need to work on." With another measuring look at them both, she headed for the lift.

Hama massaged the aching muscles in her back as she turned to Jacob. "What did I do wrong?"

He chuckled and shook his head. "Nothing."

"She looked angry."

"Naw, just frustrated. Don't take it the wrong way, kid, but she's kind of out of your league."

Hama rolled her eyes. "What was your first clue?"

He grinned at her. "The Commander's a brilliant tactician and fighter, but a terrible teacher. That's why she put me in charge of your and Kolyat's training programs. I trained the Cerberus troops on the Lazarus station, and they weren't much more advanced that you when they started. Take your cloak off and let's work on some hand to hand skills."

Hama swore she had never worked so hard in her life. After what felt like hours of hand to hand training with Jacob, he moved her to the range and tested her ability with both pistols and sniper rifles. He was pleased when she demonstrated steady hands and a natural affinity for the rifle. After more practice rounds than she could count, she thought they'd be finished for the day, but instead, he took her to Engineering and sat her in front of one of the AI terminals and asked EDI to teach her about hacking electronic locks. He bowed slightly before heading back to the armory.

At last she was able to demonstrate that she was good at something to someone on this ship. She quickly ran through the series of tests EDI put up for her, so the AI moved her up to some seriously challenging pieces of code. As she worked, she found it was surprisingly easy to bond with EDI over electronic infiltration. It brought back pleasant memories of working with Berdu and telling her mother about what she had learned.

Lunch was an all-too-brief twenty minutes followed by a session with Jacob in the armory covering the various kinds of ammo as well as learning to field strip, clean, and reassemble weapons. He sent her back to the hangar deck for two more hours of exercise until Garrus came to collect her for sniper rifle practice.

After more physical exertion in a single day than she usually got in a week, her muscles were weak and trembling as she tried to line up the rifle, which felt significantly heavier than it had during her morning practice. Garrus wasn't harsh, exactly, but he was demanding. He gave her tips for relaxing and lining up her shot, but she was discovering the hard way that being able to instantly recall his words was not the same as being able to instantly implement them. Only her innate stubbornness kept her from asking for a break. That and the knowledge that Kolyat was working as hard as she was, probably even harder.

She'd seen him briefly on the sparring floor with Garrus earlier, and the turian had not been gentle. She'd pretended not to watch him as she was running on the treadmill, but even out of the corner of her eye, she could see that they were practicing on a level far advanced from what Jacob had practiced with her. What was frightening and a little disheartening was realizing that Shepard and the rest of her specialists were probably that much more advanced again.

When she'd gone a dozen rounds without scoring a single one even close to the target center, Garrus finally took pity on her and released her for the day. She was so tired that all she wanted to do was lie down in her new tiny closet of a room that Shepard had assigned to her, but she forced herself to clean up and change into a spare set of the Commander's clothes. They were far too big for her, so she knotted them up to make them fit, but it was a clumsy and very short term solution. She'd be glad when they got to Omega and she could go shopping for some new clothes. That was assuming Shepard would even let them off the ship. She was acting even more overprotective than her own mother. She lay on her bed and kicked the wall aimlessly. Take her new quarters, for example.

She and Kolyat had shared the bed in the port lounge for two days before Shepard had suddenly taken it in her head that they shouldn't be allowed to sleep in the same room. She'd protested to the Commander that she shouldn't judge them according to human standards, but it didn't make any difference. Less than an hour later, she'd been moved here and Kolyat had been moved to Life Support. "It's not fair!" she said out loud just to hear her own words in the quiet cabin. "I'm an adult," she muttered and kicked the wall again. "I can take care of myself."

She stretched out her aching shoulders and massaged sore forearms. "I bet she told Jacob to keep us both so busy that we'd be too tired to do anything," she complained. If no one else was around, she could at least talk to herself. The only problem with that was that she always agreed with herself. That was one of the reasons she liked Kolyat. Most of the time, he might only answer with a noncommittal grunt, but she knew he was listening. He would also happily point out the holes in whatever theory she had, but it made her particularly proud when she was able to change his mind about something.

She rolled over and punched the miserable excuse for a pillow into something with a little more shape. She missed him. It had been less than a day, but aside from seeing him around the ship a couple of times, they hadn't had any time to speak. This cabin had the faint scent of fresh sheets and whatever cleaner had been used last, but she missed his scent lingering on the bed. She missed his quiet, comforting presence. "Okay, enough of this. You're not gonna keep me from doing what I want," she declared as she rolled painfully out of bed and headed for the lift.

After a quick peek into the mess to confirm that Kolyat wasn't there, she headed to Life Support. She hoped he wasn't still in the hangar bay or the armory, then she decided if he was, she'd just wait for him here.

He was there, she saw with relief. He was leaning up against the window looking down at the drive core. When she opened the door, he turned briefly to see who it was, then looked back through the window. He looked dejected. Forgetting her own tiredness and complaints, she went to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. He had just returned from a shower and was only wearing a pair of light pants. Now that she was touching him, she could hear the faint traces of nervousness that he wasn't bothering to suppress. "What's wrong, Kol?"

"We're diverting from Omega."

Puzzled, she looked up at him. His forehead was pressed against the heavy plas-glass, and his eyes were unfocused. "Why?"

"It's a rescue mission. I was in the armory when Shepard came in to tell Jacob. Some Cerberus people who are stuck and need a lift."

"Okay," she said slowly. "Why is that a bad thing?" she asked again.

"It's just another change in plans with no warning. It'll take another day to reach Omega, and then Sur'Kesh. I feel like a piece of driftwood in the ocean, never knowing where I'm going next and not in control of anything."

He was holding something back. She could hear it in his voice. He never could hide any prevarication from her, especially after her mother started coaching her, but then again, he rarely bothered to say anything but the unvarnished truth. "What else?" This was one of those times she was going to have to prod to get everything.

His breath whooshed out of him, and he turned around to slump against the window. "Shepard wants me to go with her."

"What?"

"She said it sounded like a quick pickup and that it would be a good chance for me to get some field experience."

Hama wasn't sure what to make of the sudden emotions that flooded through her. Kolyat had told her enough of the stories he'd heard from his father that she had a pretty good idea of what the Commander usually faced on her excursions. But there was a little bit of pride for him in there, too. Shepard thought enough of Kolyat to trust him at her side on a rescue mission. She doubted very much that Shepard would extend that same trust to her. "Do you think you'll have to fight someone?"

He finally looked at her, letting her see the full extent of his nervousness. "I don't know," he admitted. "When she told me about the rescue, she said the message was being jammed so they only got a short data stream, but some Cerberus personnel were requesting an emergency pickup. They said they weren't in any immediate danger, but Hama, why would someone be jamming their request for transport if there wasn't something else going on?"

She shrugged helplessly and wished she knew more. "I dunno. Sounds like an episode of  _Spectre Vice_." Her knowledge about this sort of thing came from action vids and novels, and she doubted they would provide a very realistic guide to actual fighting and espionage. She tried to offer some encouragement. "I doubt she'd ask you to go with her if she wasn't sure that you'd be fine. I mean, she made such a big deal about making sure we were safe, right? So she's hardly gonna take you someplace where you're going to be in danger."

"I know, and I can't decide if I'm happy or insulted. I mean, it's not like I'm looking forward to shooting someone, but the way she was talking, it sounded like she didn't expect any problems at all or she'd take Grunt with her. So it's stupid for me to be nervous," he finished as he turned back to stare at the engine room.

"Are you really nervous?"

"I think I might throw up." He paused. "Don't you dare tell that to Shepard."

"I won't," she promised.

Wordlessly, he swept his arm around her and pulled her tight against his side.

She buried her face against her chest and tried to croon comfort, but it wouldn't come. "You'll be fine," she said, but the words rang hollow.

Kolyat stared out at the drive core. "Do you know I've shot a gun at someone exactly twice in my life, Hama? And each time, I dropped my target. The second time I killed him. Sometimes I think maybe I am my father's son and that scares me."

"You're not your father, Kolyat," she said forcefully.

He rested his chin against the top of her head. "No," he agreed. "I'm not. Problem is, I don't know who I want to be."

"Why can't you just be you?"

"And who's that?"

"My best friend. The one who says he'll do whatever it takes to keep us safe. The one I trust with all my heart." She put her hand over his chest and felt the intense vibrato from deep emotion. She knew he could feel the same in her. "The one I love," she whispered.

He settled his hands around her waist and picked her up to hold her against the glass window. He pressed his body against hers to keep her there and leaned in until their breaths intermingled. "Hama, I...I need you. Please don't leave me," he whispered. She could hear years of hurt and longing humming underneath his words. "You're the only one I trust..." He closed his eyes as the words got stuck in his throat. "If I lost you, I don't...I couldn't..."

His pain was so strong it drew an answering response from her. The comfort that wouldn't come earlier sounded now, but it was intermixed with her own nervousness. Ever since that day in the movie theater, her life had been turned upside down until she didn't even have a clue which way to go. Her only constant was Kolyat. Sullen, angry Kolyat who tried so hard to hide his insecurities behind a mask that was equal parts sarcasm and irritation. But he trusted her enough to let her see who he really was, and now he was at his most open and vulnerable.

"I'm not going anywhere, Kol," she promised him fervently. She wrapped her arms tighter around his neck. She would stay here, but she was suddenly afraid he would grow away from her. He was the one going on a mission with Shepard. He was the one who knew what he was going to do with his life, in spite of his doubts. What about her? Who was she without him?

He was her rock. No matter what was happening, or who he was talking to, he never changed. He never flattered, never lied, and after so many years of watching her mother and all the other diplomats, his blunt honesty was thrillingly attractive. The thought that Kolyat and everything he meant to her might be gone forever in a few hours scared her to death. A cold hand clenched in her gut as she realized that playtime was over.

Suddenly she couldn't take it anymore. She pressed her lips against his, and her kiss was open and wet and full of unspoken promises. She was tired of waiting, scared of the future, and she wanted more from Kolyat right this instant. His arms tightened spasmodically around her, and she felt a thrill of power at the rumble of desire that vibrated from his chest into hers.

He held back, allowing her to kiss him but not returning it. Her hand caressed the back of his head, coming down to tease his frill and just brush over the sensitive neck ribbing. His desire sounded louder in the barren room as his breathing picked up unevenly. She kissed him again, deepening it and teasing his lips open.

"Hama, wait." His voice was hoarse from desire, and his hands dug into her ribs.

"No, Kol. Aren't you tired of being told what to do? I am. I'm tired of everyone looking at me like a helpless kid. I'm tired of being treated like I can't make my own decisions. They put us in separate rooms on different floors because they don't trust us together. But we're adults, Kolyat. I'm a woman, and I want you to treat me like one, even if no one else will."  _Please_ , she begged through another kiss.

He groaned, and she could feel his resistance crumbling. "Hama..." he tried once more.

"Please, Kol. Before you go...I want...Just in case..." She was afraid to finish any of her sentences. She kissed him desperately over and over.

He couldn't hold out any longer, and she felt it in the way he crushed her against him. "Hama!" This time, there was no hesitation. He spoke just before he claimed her lips. "You are everything to me!"

Her heart was ready to beat out of her chest, and she felt icy and hot all over at the same time. A few days ago, life had been normal, maybe even boring. Now she was adrift in a cold uncaring galaxy, and the one person she had left was going to leave her. And no matter what anyone said about it being safe, he was going out with a gun and no guarantee of coming back. She wanted this from him before the worst could happen. She wanted this moment that she could keep with her for the rest of her life.

He carried her over to a narrow cot, and for a moment she was worried it was too small for them both. Then he was on top of her, and the cot was just the right size. As pieces of clothing fell to the floor, little zings of nervousness shot through her, but she forced them away by focusing on Kolyat's lean, hard body pressing down against hers. Every time he hesitated, she kissed him again until they both couldn't keep still. Gradually, the nervousness transformed into the white hot lightning of concupiscence until Kolyat was all she could sense.

Their subvocals twined around each other's, revealing depths of emotions they'd only hinted at before. Now, however, everything was laid bare. Unsurprisingly, Kolyat's unconscious voice was just as fierce as his hands against her scales and just as passionate. Once his initial resistance had been breached, he held nothing back. She could taste his ardor and hunger, and she knew she was as exposed as he was. It only made their bond that much more intimate.

Their union was everything she'd hoped for and nothing like she'd expected. Instincts eons old brought them together and kept them there until they both collapsed in exhaustion.

"I love you, Hama," he murmured against her neck.

His rough honesty sent another thrill through her in spite of the fact they were both barely able to move. She wrapped her arms around his back and pulled him closer to feel as much contact between their bodies as possible. Her fingers traced the small protuberances along his spine, and she smiled as she felt him shiver against her. "I love you, too, Kol," she breathed. The fear was still there, but at least for this one short moment everything felt right and good with the world. She even felt relaxed enough to tease him again. "Well, at least now you have something else to think about other than being sick."

He pulled his head up to look down at her in disbelief. "You can joke about that now?" he asked incredulously. He groaned in mock defeat and dropped his head to the pillow, but she could hear the laughter underneath. "What am I going to do with you?"

"You're going to keep me around," she told him. "You need me."

He moved sensuously against her causing her to gasp aloud. "Yes. I do. And I'm never going to leave you, my beloved."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Orchidellia, my beta reader who gives me great ideas, advice and feedback.


	44. Dark Reflections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rescue mission nets a very unexpected guest on the Normandy.

Shepard stepped off the lift into the hangar deck and saw both Kolyat and Garrus already waiting for her. She nodded briefly as she walked past them and onto the shuttle. As soon as they were seated, the pilot lifted off and headed for the planet's surface.

"Kolyat, you'll be on my left. Garrus always has my right." Ruthlessly, she pushed away the memory that surfaced of the first time she entered a firefight with Thane. She'd given him the exact same instructions. "Don't stay quiet on the comm. Speak up if you see anything strange, if you run out of clips, or even if you need a break. Even if you think it's something I already saw, go ahead and say something. I'd rather know about it twice than be surprised once."

She looked at him carefully. He looked tense, but he was paying close attention. "I don't expect any problems down there, but just in case something goes sideways, make sure you find cover for yourself first, then concentrate on taking down enemy targets. And Kolyat..." She waited until his dark eyes were focused on her. "I wouldn't have brought you with me if I wasn't confident in your capabilities. Remember that." He nodded solemnly and resumed staring at the far shuttle wall. She glanced at Garrus and they exchanged shrugs. Everyone had a first mission, and everyone handled it differently. She'd talked it over with Garrus ahead of time, and they agreed it was time to put Kolyat in the field. Hopefully this really would be a simple drop and pickup, but she double checked her weapons anyway.

The pilot signaled when they were five minutes out. "Anything on the radio?" she asked him.

"Negative, ma'am. There's still a lot of heavy duty jamming on the radio bands down there. Once you get more than a half-klick away, you'll be cut off from me until you stop the interference."

She frowned at Garrus. That wasn't a good sign. If there were Cerberus people still alive down there, they should have taken steps to stop the jamming by now. Either they were dead, or the source was external to the base. Neither option was pleasant to consider.

The pilot gave the green light for her to open the door. The atmosphere was a toxic mix of nitrogen and heavy gases that limited visibility to a brown haze within a few meters, but the temperature and pressure were within tolerable limits, meaning they needed breathers but not full environmental suits. The base was only a hundred meters away.

Cautiously, she jumped to the ground followed by the others. "Stay close," she ordered as she headed out. She had just spotted the entrance to the base when Garrus pointed out the lump on the ground. Salarian. Shot through the chest. She left him where he lay and headed to the base. She could feel Kolyat's tension as they cycled through the airlock. She wasn't any more relaxed. Airlocks made a natural choke point, and she and Garrus both had their weapons out. Kolyat mimicked them.

"Shepard to any Cerberus personnel. Come in. Radio your location to me." Only static returned her request. "Damn, I'd hoped the signal would be clear inside the base."

"Looks like standard salarian construction," Garrus noted. "Let's head to the HQ. We might be able to troubleshoot the problem there." She nodded.

They walked past one brightly lit hallway, then a darkened one. "Shepard, there are bodies down there," Kolyat said. He pulled out a light and shined it down the hallway, illuminating more salarian bodies lying on the ground.

She stopped and backtracked to go down the hallway and look at the closest body. Garrus stood watch as she beckoned Kolyat closer. "What can you tell me about him?"

Kolyat frowned as he reached out to turn the body over. There was a pool of congealed blood underneath him. He traced the blood back to an injury on the salarian's side then studied the floor. "Hard to tell. Looks like he was running away, then was shot and fell here. This first injury, the non-fatal one, wasn't a gunshot. See how it's sliced open?" he pointed.

"What else?" she asked as she gestured down the hallway. He looked at her questioningly. "What's missing?" she prodded.

He looked again. "No armor," he noted suddenly. "And they're all salarians. No other races."

She nodded and stood up. "It's probably not a merc base, but there aren't any insignia. Who were these guys?" She filed that mystery away for later. They headed down the hallway toward the main control room. She was only a couple meters from the main door when Garrus said quietly, "Shepard, I think there's someone in there."

She nodded and brought her Locust up to bear. Garrus gestured for Kolyat to put his back up against the hallway wall just as he was doing while she headed toward the HQ. She swallowed and took a deep breath as she reached out to push the door in. She immediately twisted and brought her weapon up to bear on the space behind the door. "You!"

"You!" a similarly disgruntled voice said from the shadows.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she asked.

"Why did you have to be the one to get my distress call?" he lamented back as he stepped into the lit hallway.

"I never imagined you would ever stoop to sending out a distress call. What happened? The Illusive Man couldn't spring for a reliable ship for you?" She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. Of all the scenarios she had planned for, picking up Kai Leng from a habitat full of dead salarians hadn't been anywhere near the top ten.

The way the corners of his mouth turned down suggested he was giving her a withering glare behind his cybernetic goggles, but the effect was mostly lost on her. "I had a ship. The Lystheni destroyed it," he spat. "Along with my partner."

She'd lost too many of her own command over the years to be remain hard-hearted about that. "Sorry to hear it," she muttered. She looked around again. Lystheni. That explained the habitat design and lack of armor and insignia on the dead salarians. Lystheni were renegade salarians who refused to conform to mainstream salarian society and consequently were banished from the homeworld and all official colonies. Thought to number only a few thousand across the galaxy, they survived by providing black market research and deals.

He slid his sword home in its sheath and muttered, "So am I. Is your shuttle nearby?"

"Yeah, just outside. Leng," she gestured toward her two squadmates, "Vakarian and Krios. We've got room to take your partner back," she offered.

He ducked back into the darkened HQ and picked up a metal briefcase. "She knew the score when she came on this mission. She's dead now. What happens to her body no longer matters," he said dispassionately.

Shepard winced. She'd had to leave the body of a fallen comrade behind on two occasions not counting the SR1, and she still bitterly regretted each one. Leng's attitude went beyond pragmatic and into cold callousness, but it was his partner. She'd made the offer. She didn't know who the woman was. Hell, it could have been someone she'd have been just as happy to see dead three years ago. Fuck, she hated working with Cerberus! "Fine," she bit off. "Let's go."

They made their way back through the empty hallways. Leng stayed in the rear. "What happened here?" she asked.

"Retrieving Cerberus property."

She glanced back and saw his hand clench tighter around the briefcase handle. "Must be pretty damn important."

"It is."

"I see you're just as talkative as ever, Leng."

"And you still can't shut up, Shepard."

"I told you, I like talking." She glanced back again when no reply came. "Any particular reason you decided to take all these lystheni out with extreme prejudice?"

"Why don't you save your interrogation for when we're safe on board your ship?"

This time it was her turn to glare at him. "Is there some reason we're not safe here? Miss a few, maybe?" Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Kolyat was edging closer to her and away from Leng.

"What the hell do you expect with the jamming device?" he exploded. " _Bèn dàn_! The damn lystheni sent out a call for reinforcements then jammed all the frequencies so it couldn't be recalled. I've been trying to find it for the past four hours!"

"Fuck!" Shepard turned back around and picked up the pace until she was jogging down the hallway. "You might have said something earlier. I think I need to have a talk with EDI when I get back."

She just hoped whatever reinforcements were coming were further away than the Normandy had been.

As they came closer to the entrance, her comm started sputtering with static and pieces of words from her pilot. "...pard. Shep...Joker warn...ship...have to lift..."

She ran faster and slammed her hand at the outer airlock door in frustration as they waited for it to cycle. Once it did, she took off at a run for the LZ, trusting that the men would follow her.

"Shepard, come in," her pilot repeated. "I'm taking small arms fire. Watch yourself. I can't see how many are out there."

"Almost there," she panted. A whine and a puff of dirt were the first indications of hostile action. She threw herself to the side and scanned for enemies, but all she could see was the fog. That wasn't all bad. Salarian eyesight wasn't any better than human. If she couldn't see them, they couldn't see her. She was still headed for the shuttle, but not as fast.

Kolyat's pistol snapped loudly in the thick atmosphere, and she glanced over to see where he was shooting. She could just barely see through the fog as a shape fell to the ground. "On your three, Shepard," Garrus said calmly. He was already targeting with his SMG, and another shape fell down.

"Gonna leave some for me?" she teased, although her tone was deadly serious. She was worried about Kolyat, but she couldn't afford to watch out for him too much. A hot gust of wind blew through and cleared some of the fog, letting her see a knot of enemies just ahead. "Never mind," she muttered as her Locust chattered through a clip.

"Left, Shepard. Lots!" Kolyat's voice was higher pitched than normal. She hurriedly stole a glance in his direction and saw at least four sinuous shapes heading for him. He raised his pistol and fired, but a shot from the front impacted her tech armor, and she had to focus on staying alive herself.

She heard his incoherent yell rise sharply as she paused, sighted and dropped another target. Beside her, Garrus was doing the same. As soon as she could, she turned toward Kolyat and saw a salarian slumped up against him with two more lying in the dirt.

A shape flickered into existence behind the salarian as Kai Leng withdrew his sword from the salarian's back. "Thanks, kid. You make a great distraction," the Cerberus operative said with a smug grin as he cleaned his sword on the dead salarian's back. He faded back out of sight as he cloaked again.

Shepard ran over to Kolyat. "You okay?" she asked, checking him over. It looked like all the blood on him was salarian.

He gave her a tense nod, and she slapped him hard on the back. "Good. We're almost there. Stay close." He nodded again and took off after her. She couldn't spot Leng, but odds were that he was ahead of them.

She was tense as they cautiously advanced, but no more enemies fired on them. She was thrilled when they finally came up to the shuttle, but she didn't allow herself to relax until all three were no board. "Where's Leng?" she queried the pilot.

"No one else has requested entry," he told her.

She frowned and stooped to peer out the pilot's windshield. "Where the hell are you, Leng?"

"Right behind you, Shepard," he smirked as he decloaked, causing her to spin around.

"Show off," she muttered. "Where were you?" She nodded to the pilot to take off.

The assassin leisurely settled down and kicked his feet out across the narrow aisle, forcing her to step over them as she took her own seat. The shuttle lifted abruptly, with the pilot anxious to get away from any further reinforcements that might be showing up. "Taking care of the enemy," he drawled.

She frowned at him. "We were ready to take off. There was no need to hunt down the rest of them."

He shrugged carelessly. "That's your opinion, Shepard."

She checked that her weapon was safed and turned off her tech armor. There was something about Leng that made her skin crawl even as she respected his obvious skills. He was just too happy about any opportunity to kill aliens, and the non-humans on the Normandy were all precious to her. "We're safe on board the shuttle. Now tell me what you were doing there."

He looked at her for several seconds as if trying to decide whether or not he would answer. The goggles made it hard for her to read his expression, but she had managed to figure out how to communicate with drell, krogans, salarians, turians, and even masked quarians. It shouldn't take her too long to decipher Leng. "I already told you, Shepard. Retrieving Cerberus property."

"What did they have that's so important?"

He ignored her and stared at the shuttle wall. Or maybe he was sleeping. Who knew? She was tempted to reach out and pull his goggles off. She tried another tack. "Where is your boss, anyway? He's been pleasantly quiet lately. It's worrisome."

One narrow shoulder lifted a couple of centimeters and dropped again. She had a feeling he was doing his best to get under her skin. She was annoyed with herself that he was succeeding. He wasn't under her command, and it was a situation that she instinctively knew if she pushed too hard would end up in violence. She glanced at Garrus, and he twitched his mandibles. She could almost hear his thoughts: This was her problem. Pro-human, sword-wielding assassins weren't his specialty. Kolyat was lost in his own world; she recognized the signs from Thane. At least his memories looked happy to judge by the slight upward twitch of his lips.

She turned her attention back to Leng. "We'll be at Omega in a couple more days." He continued to ignore her. She grimaced and soothed her irritated feelings by imagining him rooming with Grunt for the next two days. Thank God the Illusive Prick hadn't tried to foist Leng off on her crew. The man was the antithesis of team player. She and Leng spent the rest of the shuttle trip ignoring each other.

She didn't bother trying to hide her relief when they docked aboard the Normandy. "Traynor can set you up with a place to bunk," she told Leng as she stepped out of shuttle. "Kolyat, I'll debrief you later. For now, get some rest."

She made it to her cabin and collapsed at her desk as she tried to figure out what, if anything, to do about Leng. As long as he behaved himself, she felt morally compelled to at least give him a lift to Omega. The problem was that she didn't trust him any further than she did the Illusive Man. Her back was twitching with the feeling of a danger she couldn't pinpoint yet. Liara had stolen nearly fifteen percent of the man's empire, and he hadn't made an obvious counter move. She knew he wasn't unaware of the takeover, which begged the question - what was he planning? She had a bad feeling that Leng might be his countermove, although the circumstances of his rescue counted heavily against that theory. Maybe Liara could help. She sent her a quick note asking if she'd figured out what the Illusive Man was up to.

The Reapers hadn't even shown up yet and she was worrying about being assassinated on her own ship. Sadly enough, that wasn't even her biggest concern. Massaging away a looming headache, she pulled up the combined fleet records from Omega.

* * *

"Can I come in?"

"Do you always ask?" There wasn't actually much room in the cabin Traynor had assigned to Leng. He was stretched out on the bunk, and there was a narrow desk and chair at the far end of the tiny space.

"I do. I was raised to be polite."

He snorted and stared up at the ceiling. "I was raised to survive, no matter what."

Taking that as an invitation, she came in and straddled the chair, leaning her arms against its back and looking at him. "I know." He glanced up at her, but with the visor on it was hard to read his expression. "All the cybernetics threw me at first, but I finally realized why you seemed so familiar. You entered the academy the same year I did, but you were a year back in the N program. I heard a lot of good things about you after you hit N5."

The special forces program was exclusive, prestigious, and hard as a bitch to get through. Only a fraction of Alliance soldiers were ever invited to even try out for the N1 level. Most washed out along the way, but achieving even a single N rank was usually enough to get you promoted to leadership positions. Once you reached N5, you were taken seriously. N6 ranks were sent into the field and heavy fire missions under the direct supervision of an N7. You only made N7 if your mentor approved. As a result, the number of N7s in service at any one time were small, and they were in high demand across the entire Alliance military. Most N7s knew each other on sight or at least by reputation, and Leng's reputation was certainly attention-grabbing.

Leng tucked his arms underneath his head. "Bet you heard a lot more a couple years later."

"You could say that." She was just as nonchalant as he was, although she could see the tension coiled in his body. "Killing a krogan with a standard issue knife is impressive. Too bad you picked the wrong krogan in the wrong place."

" _Nǐ cuòle_ ," he objected. "That krogan had it coming. My mistake was in signing up with the Alliance in the first place. The Alliance shouldn't care what happens to an idiotic krogan who only got what it deserved."

"They probably didn't. What they cared about was a decorated N7 killing a civilian for no apparent good reason."

He pulled out a knife and used it to clean his fingernails. "I had plenty of reasons. First and foremost, it was an alien."

She raised an eyebrow. "If that's your criteria for killing people, we're going to have a problem."

"What's your criteria, Shepard? Anyone wearing a merc badge seems to be fair game for you."

"Only when they're pointing a weapon in my direction," she said. "You can't call them civilians then."

"Cut the crap," he drawled. "We're both killers. Just admit it. Now you're a Spectre so you can kill anyone you want without repercussions. Lucky you."

Her eyes narrowed. "You want to have a pissing contest about who's killed the most people, Leng?"

He chuckled without looking up. "No. I'm pretty sure you'd win that one, Shepard. I'm more...selective when it comes to my targets."

"I do what I do to protect people, not further the goals of a humanist organization."

"I've got the same goal, Shepard. I protect people, too. Humans," he emphasized. "Everything I do for Cerberus, everything Cerberus does, is to further our position in the galaxy, to give humans more rights. Why should we be second-class citizens and bow to those smug Council races?"

"Maybe because we only joined the galactic civilization a few decades ago?"

He sneered at her. "So you think we should wait centuries to get respect? Like the gasbag volus, always whining about not having a Council seat? You see how well waiting is working out for them."

"And you know how we got our Council seat? Me, working in cooperation with alien races, saving the blasted Council when Sovereign attacked! Believe me, I would like nothing better than to never have to deal with Sparatus again, but that's not how you play the game."

He swung his feet off the bed and sat up to glare at her. "No, you deliberately sacrificed six human military ships to save aliens who don't give a fuck about humans."

She refused to let him see how much that call still pained her. "I'm able to look at the big picture. I know that it's going to take every race working together if we want to have any chance at all of surviving the Reapers. And that's why I'm in charge, not you. Because I can see that, while all you can see is your prejudice."

"The Illusive Man brought you back from the dead to stop the Collectors and save humans, and you did. Bravo, but just because you're flashy and I work in the shadows, don't discount what I do." His knife was gripped tightly in one hand as he leaned forward.

She looked him over. All lean lethality, obviously a fan of getting up close and personal when he did his wetwork. From what she could tell, he was just as dedicated to Cerberus as she was to defending the galaxy. Not hard to understand, since it was Cerberus who had broken him out of prison. He'd not only found a savior, but a home where his anti-alien tendencies were nurtured and respected. She wanted to see if she could break through that, as well as keep him busy enough to stay out of trouble for the next two days. "I don't, but I want to know if you are more than a murderous spy," she said deliberately provoking him.

"What's it matter to you? You've already made your opinion of me perfectly clear. I sure as hell don't care about your respect." He laid down again in a pointed attempt to get her to leave.

"You had a glowing service record up until you killed that krogan. You've got a skill set no one else does on the Normandy right now. I could use your help."

She could see he was intrigued, in spite of himself. "With what?" he finally asked when she let the silence extend on out.

"Teaching."

He snorted in disbelief and turned to face the wall. She waited. Eventually he craned his head up to look at her. "Who?"

"Potential infiltrator. I think she's got skills, but I can't teach her. Can't drop her off anywhere right now. But if you think you're not up to the task..." she trailed off. He wasn't so different from her. Put a challenge out there and dare him not to take it.

"Any good?" She had him halfway hooked. Now if she could get him to deal with the fact that Hama wasn't human.

"You'd have to tell me." She waited while he made up his mind.

"What's in it for me?"

She rolled her eyes. "A chance to prove you can do more than kill aliens."

His smile was anything but reassuring. "I've killed plenty of humans, too, Shepard. Don't forget that." He sat up again. "Fine. I'm bored anyway. Where is she?"

Shepard smiled smugly. "I'll have her meet you in the hangar deck." She stood up and headed for the door. Just before she walked out, she looked back over her shoulder and added, "By the way, Leng, she's alien. But I'm sure you can adapt." She laughed to herself at the look of irritation on his face.

* * *

Hama waited nervously on the edge of the sparring mat. Today was a repeat of her attempt two days ago to tag someone while cloaked. Next to her, Kai Leng stood with arms crossed and stared out at Shepard and Jacob. Garrus and Kolyat were also down here, standing on the opposite end of the sparring mats.

She'd worked on her stealth and combat practices practically every moment she wasn't sleeping or eating over the past couple of days. Leng was cold and officious and had even told her he was only doing this to prove he could teach anyone, something that Shepard obviously couldn't manage. Leng and Shepard butted heads every time they saw each other. In fact, Shepard had only been to the hangar deck once, and had retired in a surly mood after she and Leng got into an argument about Cerberus' methods.

Hama refused to quit, however, and Leng's scorn only motivated her to work harder. When she'd drawn a grudging "good" from him earlier today, it had meant more than any of the praise she'd received throughout all of her schooling.

Kolyat had refused to have anything to do with Leng. He'd only told her to watch herself around him when she'd told him about her training assignment. He also hadn't told her much about the mission. She wondered how much those two things were related.

Shepard and Jacob were wearing light armor today since the plan was to have everyone spar in rotation. The mood was much different than it had been last time, and she could trace the reason straight back to Kai Leng and the surreptitious glances he got from everyone else. For his part, his stance was a clear warning to everyone else to keep their distance.

Shepard clapped Jacob on the shoulder then turned and headed in her direction. "Ready, Hama?" she asked without so much as a glance at Leng. "Same thing as last time. Let's see how much you've learned." She shot a withering glance in Leng's direction, as if she doubted he could have taught her anything. Shepard's obvious disdain for him set her even more on edge and made her that much more determined to show that she had indeed learned a lot.

Shepard headed back to the center of the mats to tap fists with Jacob and start sparring. As Hama reached to activate her cloak, Leng's hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. "Wait," he ordered. She glanced uneasily at the pair sparring a couple of meters away. Shepard had given her an order, but Leng's tone warned her that he expected her to obey him instead. Leng pulled her a step closer to him and leaned in to talk quietly. "Never do what the enemy expects."

"She's waiting for me to go out there and tag her," Hama responded warily, unsure what he was getting at.

"Exactly, so you're going to stay right here and watch me do it," he said with a sinister smile.

"But…?"

His grip tightened painfully on her wrist. "What is the point of this exercise?" he demanded.

She thought quickly. "To show how much I've learned from you?"

"That's what Shepard thinks. You still have a lot to learn in tactics, and this is my lesson for you today. She's expecting one thing – an inexperienced chit fumbling toward her from behind. So we give her neither of those. Now cloak and watch me," he ordered.

He cloaked as soon as she did and gave her an ungentle shove to force her to move as everyone expected. She kept her eyes glued on his barely visible shimmer. She almost lost him, not expecting that he would leap from the floor to the nearest workbench and land so softly that not a single tool moved. He paused and she tried to figure out where he would go next. Again she nearly lost him when he went vertical instead of horizontal. It took a moment for her eyes to pick him out among the ceiling girders. He was above the pair on the floor. She studied Shepard and saw that she was doing the same thing as before – turning quickly and glancing around looking for a non-existent cloaked figure on the sparring mat. Not once did she look up.

Leng waited until they were directly beneath him, then he dropped like a stone. Immediately, there was a surreal explosion of knees and elbows seen and then partially obscured as Leng's cloak tried in vain to cover both of them. Between the cloak and the incredible speed of both Shepard and Leng, it was impossible to tell exactly what was going on. Even when Leng's cloak gave out, she could make out little more two figures twisting around each other, each trying to grab onto the other. The hangar was deathly silent except for the fleshy sound of fists and feet impacting followed by pained grunts.

Hama saw something black go flying across the floor followed by a muffled curse from Leng. She belatedly realized that Shepard had yanked his goggles from his face, but it didn't seem to affect the male at all. She'd only seen a handful of sparring matches in her time on the Normandy, but this one wasn't like any of the others she'd seen. Neither one of them seemed to be pulling their punches, nor were there any good natured comments from the spectators. Jacob hovered anxiously nearby, obviously wanting to get involved but not daring to. Garrus took a step forward and clenched his fists tight. She realized in a flash that the only one with enough authority to stop the fight was Shepard herself.

She knew that Leng harbored no good will toward Shepard; he'd made that abundantly clear with numerous cutting comments about her command and fighting styles and her willingness to put up with aliens in her command. Now she wondered if he would go so far as to try and kill her right here.

Abruptly they stilled with Leng on his back and Shepard's arm extended across his body. There was a pained look on Shepard's face as she tapped on Leng's leg. Hama let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. Tapping out was the first thing Jacob had taught her. She felt sorry that Shepard had lost, but it had been incredible to watch. The relief that she felt turned to horrified shock when Leng grinned and made a tiny twisting motion with his hips and arms, and she heard an audible pop followed by an agonized howl.

Leng let go of Shepard's arm and climbed languidly to his feet. He hadn't escaped unscathed. Blood streamed from his nose, which was obviously twisted out of line. He strolled back to Hama. "What did you think of your lesson, little girl?"

She still couldn't believe what she'd seen. Jacob had drilled it into her head that it was her responsibility to make sure she never injured a sparring partner, and she'd just watched Leng casually dislocate Shepard's shoulder. Even now, she could see the obvious bulge of her shoulder joint out of place as Garrus helped the Commander to her feet. "Why did you do that?"

"If I had let her go unharmed, what would have happened?" he asked as he watched the Commander grimace. The corners of his lips turned up in the most satisfied smile she'd seen from him. Aside from that one scream of pain, Shepard had made no other sound, but her lips were nearly white as she compressed them together.

Hama glanced between them, wondering if it was a trick question. Her own shoulder twitched nervously in sympathy. "Nothing. You won. She'd probably lecture me about something, and then there would be another match."

"Exactly. Nothing would have changed, and you would have learned the wrong lesson."

"Which is what?" she dared to ask him.

He turned to look down at her. "If I'd broken your arm in a similar match, what do you think Shepard would have done to me?" She grimaced and he gave her a smug grin. "She'd have lectured me, confined me to quarters, or otherwise tried to impose her authority on me, and all you'd have is a broken arm. Now? Now you can see how to truly finish a fight. Use surprise as your first attack and never leave an enemy alive and unharmed behind you. In addition, Shepard has learned very viscerally that I'm easily her match. I could have killed her just now, and everyone in this room knows that." The silken menace in his voice made her blood run cold, and she suddenly realized why Kolyat refused to work with him.

He leaned down to pick up his goggles and fitted them back into place. Surprisingly, it was easier to look at the dark goggles than at his cruel eyes. "I think we can safely say there will be a break for a while. Meet me back here in an hour, and we'll pick up where we left off." He headed for the elevator, pointedly ignoring the group on the sparring floor.

Jacob started to say something, but Shepard stopped him with a quiet word. Hama made her way to Kolyat who hadn't moved through the whole thing. "Are you still going to train with him?" he asked. She could hear the disapproval thick in his words.

"I have to."

"He's dangerous."

"Everyone on this freaking ship is dangerous, Kol."

"Yeah, but no one else is deliberately ripping joints out of socket."

She watched the elevator doors close on Leng. "He's proving a point to Shepard. He won't hurt me."

"I'll come back and watch," he started to say, only to have her interrupt him firmly. "No, Kol. No audience." Kolyat threw her an angry glare, but she stared him down. "I'm going to fight my own battles. I've dealt with him for the past two days. I can deal with him for a few more hours, but if you're down here trying to protect me, it's just going to make things worse for me. Stay out of it."

He tried one more time. "Hama..."

"No, Kol. Let me handle it. Besides, EDI's always watching. He won't do anything like that to me." She wouldn't admit it to Kolyat, but she was actually scared and shaking inside. The casual violence he doled out on the Commander was one of the most shocking things she'd seen, but the anger in his words and actions had all been directed at Shepard, not her. She couldn't put it into words for Kolyat, but she was confident that in spite of everything, Leng wouldn't take it out on her. She was just another way for Leng to prove his superiority to Shepard.

His lips thinned out in a frown, but he gave her a reluctant nod. "I'll be glad when he's off this ship."

Hama looked at Shepard, who was cradling her arm close to her body. "I'm sure you're not the only one."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Orchidellia, my beta reader for all her help, insight and guidance.
> 
> Kai Leng is a mix of Chinese and Russian, and in my head canon, he grew up in Omega's slums. I also head cannoned that Chinese is very prevalent in human colonies, simply because they are such a large population now. So Leng will often curse or speak in Chinese. Not knowing any Chinese, I use Google Translate, so please pardon any mistakes in my writing.
> 
> Bèn dàn - Idiot.
> 
> Nǐ cuòle - You're wrong.


	45. Ready, Aim, Fire!

The polyculture dome was their fourth hiding spot, and the longest time they'd spent in any of them. Feron's contact had been moving them around while coordinating with the Shadow Broker for a way to get them off the planet. They'd tried once to sneak into the spaceport, but Feron's ship was under constant guard, and sneaking out unnoticed again had been a near thing.

Feron's contact had promised them that someone would be coming to help them tonight. Meanwhile, they were stuck waiting. At least there was plenty to eat, Feron thought, as he reached into a breeding cage and snagged a couple of juicy insects. "Sure you won't try one?" he asked Kasumi again as he munched on one. "They're compatible with your digestive system."

His companion wrinkled her nose and glanced away. "Thanks, but I'll stick with the vegetables."

"I've heard of humans eating insects," he said as he crunched down on the second one.

"True," she admitted, "but it's something of an acquired taste, and I prefer not to acquire it if it all possible."

He shrugged and went back for more. "Your loss."

"No, not really," she said faintly.

Across the dome, the door hissed and opened, causing them both to crouch down among the plants. It was nighttime, and past time for any workers to be coming in. Feron hoped it was finally their contact. He skulked to the side until he could see through the leaves, but all he could distinguish was a nondescript figure in a dark hooded coat. Then his contact came in and waved for them to come forward.

Still wary of potential traps, Feron moved quietly forward. Kasumi had disappeared from sight, but he knew she was somewhere close by. "Khrone," Feron hissed. "Over here."

Khrone steered his companion over to Feron. "Feron, meet Milar Strychae. She's the one who's going to help you get off Kahje tonight." As he looked at the newcomer, she pulled back her hood and nodded gravely.

She gave him a searching look, then glanced around the nearby growing beds. "Where is your companion? I haven't heard of her capture, so I assumed she was still safe with you."

"She's here," Feron assured her.

"Call her out. We must go quickly," Milar said. "There's not much time to get you back to your ship."

"What are you doing off the Citadel?" Feron demanded as he fell in beside her. He knew of her from Thane's discussions of his son's activities and rather vaguely because of her political function. He'd never had need to interact with her or her office, however.

"Events moved faster than I had planned for. I had to leave under less than ideal circumstances." The dry undertones of her voice explained even more than her words did. Kasumi decloaked as they reached the door and stayed close to Feron. There was a car waiting for them just outside the polyculture dome. Khrone slid into the driver's seat while Milar gestured for them to get into the back.

"Now, while we drive, tell me everything you know," she ordered.

Feron did so in terse sentences. Milar questioned Kasumi about what, exactly, she had seen that had prompted the hanar assassination attempt. "It's a pity you don't have any proof," she said wistfully.

Kasumi shook her head violently. "There's nothing that will pick it up, at least nothing that I know of. Those things were speaking directly in my head. It was almost overpowering. You don't want to get anywhere near those things." Even after so many days, Feron could still hear the fear in her voice.

Milar sighed. "And yet, that is exactly what we must do. Still, thanks to you, we know exactly where to go. You have undoubtedly saved lives, Ms. Goto. I thank you."

They were gliding silently past the huge, interconnected cluster of environment domes that made up the main drell city. The domes glowed softly in the rainy night, and even though Feron had sworn he would never return, he found himself oddly sad at the thought that he would never see them again. Milar spoke to Kasumi again. "Ms. Goto, I have a favor to ask of you." Kasumi nodded and the drell continued. "I understand my daughter, Hama, is travelling on the Normandy with Commander Shepard. Would you please give her a message for me? Please tell her that I love and miss my little tadpole."

Feron frowned. There was something odd about the way she spoke when she made her request. It was missing the warmth he would have expected from a mother speaking to her child. But before he could puzzle it out, they turned into the spaceport terminal. Feron tensed, expecting any moment they would be stopped and arrested. Or worse. But Khrone continued driving to the VIP section of the terminal.

"Follow me. Quickly," Milar ordered. The rain tonight was a light drizzle, and Feron even saw a single bright star shine through a momentary break in the cloud cover.

Milar walked quickly into one of the service hallways. Inside, it was eerily empty. Kasumi had disappeared again, and he greatly envied her that ability at the moment. The drell led them to the exit nearest Feron's ship and paused as she checked the time. "When we exit, stay by the door until I signal you. You'll have exactly eleven minutes to power up, lift off and get into orbit. Ignore flight control. Set a bearing of 40 degrees and as sharp an ascent angle as you can manage. That corridor will be free of any other traffic. Follow me," she ordered.

Feron noticed that the overhead light was conveniently dark just outside the door. Milar gestured for them to stay put and then cloaked. Feron's eyes rapidly adjusted to the dark, but he could see no trace of the orange drell. He spotted the guard next to their ship and watched him instead. Barely thirty seconds later, he collapsed quietly and was dragged away by an invisible force.

"I think that's our signal," Kasumi whispered. Feron nodded absently and headed to his ship.

"Take care," Milar said as she uncloaked next to their ship.

"You, too," Feron responded.

"Don't worry. I'll get your message to your daughter," Kasumi assured her.

Feron caught a ghost of a worried smile on her face as she checked her omni tool again. "Ten minutes fifty seconds. Get moving," she told them and disappeared into the darkness.

Neither Feron nor Kasumi wasted any more time. This time, he swore, would be the absolute last time he ever set foot on Kahje again. No matter how much Liara paid him.

* * *

"Where to next, Shepard?" Garrus asked.

She stared down into her batarian ale as Aria's wigglers danced for their pay on the poles around Afterlife. She hated batarians but had to admit they made a decent ale. "Sur'Kesh," she said finally.

Garrus nodded knowingly. "Figured. Took you long enough."

"Enough, Garrus," she asked without looking up. "It's just..."

His taloned hand covered hers and gave it a comforting squeeze. "I know, Shepard. It's hard to watch a loved one in that state." He sounded sad, and it reminded her that she wasn't the only one with problems.

"How's your mom?"

It was the other reason she'd sent him to Palaven for so long. His mother was gravely ill, and that assignment at least gave him time to visit with her. He drained the rest of his drink and set it down heavily. "She's dying, Shepard. Another month. Maybe two. Last time I saw her, she didn't even recognize me."

She reversed her hand underneath his to squeeze it in return. "I'm so sorry, Garrus."

He tilted his head in a turian shrug. "Solana says she has her good days, still. It's my father I worry about. Never thought I'd feel sad and worried for the old  _birat_."

"Is there anything I can do? You can head back to Palaven for a while if you like," she offered.

He shook his head. "I said my goodbyes, Shepard. I'll go back for the...the funeral," he said with an odd hitch in his voice. "If the Reapers still haven't shown." She nodded, accepting his decision without comment. "Any news from Mordin?"

She bit the inside of her cheek and shook her head slightly. "Nothing's changed."

"What's your saying? No news is good news?"

"Good news is good news, and I'm damned short on good news lately."

"You got Leng off the Normandy."

"Thank God," she said, rolling both her eyes and her sore shoulder. "He's a fucking bastard. Remind me again why I decided to risk my life and crew for anything Cerberus?"

"Because you're one of the good guys," he told her as he lifted his drink in a salute.

She joined him and gave him a crooked smile. "I try. Hey, what did you think of the rachnis' micro FTL jumps in the training exercise yesterday? Even EDI can't predict where they'll show up. They just keep hopping around the battlefield."

Garrus nodded. "Now we just need to find an entry point to the Reapers to board the strike teams."

"If anyone can find it, Rina can." She was just about to signal the waitress for another round for each of them when her omni tool pinged. "What is it, EDI?"

"The STG has an urgent message for you, Shepard. Their sensor network picked up another anomaly."

Her stomach twisted hard. After the fiasco with the last one, she wasn't sure she could handle another false alarm. "What sort of anomaly, EDI? How sure are they?"

"Shepard, the STG confirms it's a Reaper ship. They have already begun emergency preparations." EDI's voice conveyed an odd sense of calm that was completely at odds with the message she delivered.

Goosebumps covered her arms so hard that they made her skin ache. Across from her, Garrus looked sick. "How long, EDI?"

"The STG puts this ship three days out from the Maktar Nebula relay, which connects directly with the Charon relay and Earth. Shepard, the STG also warned that there may be other ships they haven't seen that are closer."

"Thanks, EDI," she said, although the words felt like sawdust in her mouth. She just stared blankly at Garrus for a few seconds. "Garrus..."

He took a deep breath. "We're ready, Shepard."

"No, we're not, Garrus. We're nowhere near ready! Only half the ships have been upgraded, and I haven't heard anything positive from Retribution or Legion yet."

"Shepard!" He spoke loudly to cut through her diatribe. "We're a lot more ready than we would have been, thanks to you. Take a deep breath. I know it's a lot to ask, but we're counting on you."

She looked into the familiar blue eyes that had been her constant companion through so much. "Alright, Garrus. Let's put Plan A into motion."

He nodded and stood as she did. "I'm with you all the way, Shepard."

* * *

_Heaven forgive me_ , she pleaded in the back of her mind as she headed to the fleet control center on Omega. Her first call wasn't to the Citadel or even Earth. It was to Mordin.

"Shepard, good news," he said immediately on pick up.

Her heart leapt into her throat. "He's awake?"

"No," he said. "But vital signs improving. Still in coma but anticipate taking him off respirator in another few days."

"Mordin, the Reapers are coming! Soon!" she said as she clenched the edge of the table.

"Yes, heard. Plans in place, Shepard. Besides, Sur'Kesh on opposite side of mass relay network. May be several days, even weeks, before Reapers get here."

"I want Thane on the Normandy, Mordin. You, too." It was all she'd wanted for weeks now.

"Not possible, Shepard. Thane still too critical to move."

Her knees gave out and forced her to plop ungracefully into the chair behind her. "Mordin," she pleaded. "He's defenseless."

"Not defenseless, Shepard. Has me, STG here. No safer place on Sur'Kesh." He gave her a warm smile through the video link. "Trust me, Shepard. Will take care of Thane. Now go. Have war to plan."

He was the one to cut the connection. She debated the merits of going to Sur'Kesh anyway, but if she didn't trust Mordin by now, there was no point. She headed to the restroom to take a few moments and gather herself. She splashed water on her face and stared at her reflection in the mirror. The surface scars were almost entirely gone now, leaving only faint silvery lines, and then only if you caught them in the right light. She had never fully gotten used to the red glint of her eyes in the overhead lights, but at least she didn't shy away from her reflection anymore. She studied the lines around her eyes and mouth that she was positive hadn't been there a year ago. How old was she now? Should she count the two years of her death and resurrection? Not that it mattered. They'd figure it out for her memorial. Again. Mechanically, she gathered her hair up and twisted it into a military bun.

For a moment, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to remember the feeling of Thane's hands in her hair. He loved her hair and was always playing with it when they were alone. She'd taught him how to braid it, and even with fused middle fingers he'd quickly picked up on the basics and gone on to create some elaborate creations that occasionally caused a stir when she left them in for a few days. Now, though, it was just her. She had neither the time nor inclination to fuss with it in such detail. The bun would have to do.

She straightened her shirt, a semi-formal dark shirt that mimicked Alliance BDUs while not actually looking like it was trying to do so. She was creating an image. Commander Shepard was back, and by God, they would listen to her this time!

* * *

The fleet was finally on the move. The last week had been excruciating for everyone. Shepard had some new enemies now, first and foremost, Councilor Padmanabhan, who had been the one to lobby that the fleet should be prepositioned at Earth to protect humanity's homeworld. The War Council had overruled her and her allies, although it had been a narrow call. The majority had decided to wait until the Reapers were in place, reasoning that since the Reapers had the bigger fleet, it made more sense for the Council fleets to use guerilla tactics. Shepard had cast her vote with the ones who favored waiting. Now she was seeing the results of that decision.

The Reapers had landed well over two hundred ships on Earth, targeting every major city. London, Tokyo, New York, Moscow, Beijing. Those and more were being devastated by the Reaper ships and their ground troops. The only saving grace was that over half the civilian populations had been moved out of the cities and into shelters, but that still left hundreds of millions at risk. Every day thousands of people were being collected and herded into ships. No one knew what they were, but thousands had gone in and not one soul had come out. Thousands more were being turned into husks to increase the Reapers' ground army.

And if that wasn't bad enough, Palaven had come under attack yesterday. Thessia and Sur'Kesh were still clear, but for how long?

Because of the guerilla nature of the strike, less than half the ships in the combined fleet were moving out. There were ground ships that would drop companies of krogans and rachni warriors. Rina would lead one of the three strike teams trying to figure out how to take down a Reaper from the inside. She wasn't sure how Rina had beaten Endo for the first crack at the Reapers, only that Endo was thoroughly disgruntled at having to wait for the second attack.

The Normandy had its own mission - to deliver a QEC to London and Alliance HQ and conduct ground reconnaissance. The fleet itself would be led by the turian Admiral Valerianus. Shepard had had a major say in the makeup and training of the fleet, but had willingly ceded overall command to the older turian since he had decades of fleet warfare experience and the support of both the turians and the asari.

Shepard felt that familiar and dichotomous combination of gut wrenching anxiety and battle calm that preceded every time she knew she was headed into a firefight. She welcomed it gladly. The anxiety and fear would keep her on her toes, but the long familiarity of battles would keep it under control. She had long accepted that death would come for her someday. "But not today," she said under her breath, the same mantra she said every time she lifted her weapon as the enemy came into sight. "Not today."

She stood watching the galaxy map as the ground ships began to peel away from the main fleet to land their troops on Earth. There was the rachni ship with Rina's team, headed to London the same as her team, but with a very different goal.

The combined fleet and its specialized units had practiced, theorized, and practiced again and again, but this was the moment of truth. Did those monsters have any weaknesses that could be exploited, or was this hopeless from the beginning? She had to believe the former. With an effort, she pushed that thought from her mind.

"Shepard, we'll be in the drop zone in less than two minutes," Joker told her. The flat quality of his voice told her that he was fully engaged in dodging enemy fire. His job wasn't to attack, as much as he wished it were. The Normandy was there to land her team and get them out again, hopefully with the personnel they were looking for.

"On my way, Joker." Too keyed up to wait for the elevator, she pounded down the narrow stairs, made even more claustrophobic in her armor and full load out. She was vaguely aware of crewmembers getting out of her way, but her mind was already on the battle ahead.

Garrus, Grunt, and Jacob were waiting in the shuttle. As soon as she was in, the pilot eased out of the Normandy and headed to the surface utilizing an erratic flight plan that had them all bracing to prevent being tossed around.

"Alright, we've got our mission. First – drop the package and secure it. Then we head to Alliance HQ and circle out from there. We're looking for Admiral Anderson, or any other high ranking officers." The package was a hastily constructed QEC that would connect to the Citadel. One of the first attacks by the Reapers had been against the comm network, and as a result, it had become nearly impossible to get real time information to or from any of the Earth Alliance forces. They were back to using couriers and drones for important messages, but those could take hours to days for messages to get through, assuming they weren't destroyed by the Reapers before they could make it to a mass relay.

The wait seemed interminable, and at the same time, no time at all had passed before they were jumping down to the ruined streets of London. The destruction was incredible. Reapers had set down directly on top of skyscrapers and arcologies, crushing them into mounds of rubble that had undoubtedly become undocumented tombs for the thousands who lived and worked in such buildings. Other buildings were scarred by energy beams and explosions. The streets were littered with destroyed ground vehicles and building rubble. Her stomach clenched when she realized there were no corpses. Either converted to husks or taken for genetic processing. Neither option was comfortable to contemplate.

Grunt maneuvered the heavy package out of the shuttle and into a relatively sheltered and intact storefront. That done, they set off at a jog for HQ. The black building had taken a pounding. The upper floors were gone and steel girders reached upward like skeletal fingers grasping at the sky. A shorter neighboring building had toppled over more or less intact and was leaning against the lower floors. The streets were empty for the moment, but when she glanced at the sky, she could see explosions and fireballs even through the daytime lighting.

The calm didn't last long, however. They came across a group of London policemen in riot gear trying to hold back a surge of husks.

Shepard didn't even have to issue commands to her team, and she couldn't be prouder of them. She and Grunt charged to the front while Garrus found a perch and brought his sniper rifle to bear. Jacob provided cover for Garrus and used his own combination of biotics and firepower to take down those closest to him. Fortunately, it was only a small group of husks, and they quickly mowed through them.

"Much obliged, ma'am," the police sergeant said as he checked his team for injuries. "That was exceptionally timely help on your part."

"Glad to help," she responded, "but we're looking for Alliance HQ. Any idea where we can find whoever's in charge?"

The sergeant mopped his brow with an honest to goodness handkerchief. She thought those were only for vids. "Yes, ma'am." He pointed with the now-begrimed piece of cloth to the base of HQ. "Bottom twenty floors are still pretty solid, although the lifts aren't working. We've got a few generators, and they've set up a hospital and mess inside. Alliance, what's left of it, is in there. Fourth floor."

Shepard felt a huge wave of relief wash over her. There was still order, still structure. She'd been half afraid that everything would have fallen to pieces already. She nodded her thanks and led her team toward HQ.

Two young Alliance soldiers manned the front checkpoint. "I'm Shepard, Council Spectre. Here to talk to Alliance HQ." The younger one looked like he wasn't even old enough to shave yet. When she announced that she was a Spectre, he simply opened his mouth and closed it again, gaping like a fish. She gave him a disapproving stare and turned toward the other one. "Step back and let us through," she ordered.

"Yes, ma'am!" In spite of the gravity of their situation, their responses to her snapped order still made her laugh to herself. That laughter died a swift death as soon as the older one leveled his weapon at Jacob. "You're under arrest," he told the Cerberus operative, his voice shaking although his weapon did not.

Jacob looked as shocked as Shepard felt. "What the hell are you talking about, soldier?" she demanded.

"Cerberus launched a terrorist attack just after the Reapers landed."

"What?" She struggled to make sense of it. "Why?"

The soldier shook his head. "I don't know, ma'am. Group of 'em came in to HQ during the confusion. All I know is there was a fight, and some soldiers died. We've got orders to detain any Cerberus personnel we find, so he has to come with me."

Shepard narrowed her eyes and stepped between them. "First man to lay a hand on Mr. Taylor loses that hand. Am I clear?"

The kid looked nervously between Shepard and the demolished HQ building, clearly torn about his duties. "But ma'am…"

"But nothing," she cut him off cruelly. "Soldier, do you have any idea what a Spectre is?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Then you know that if I decide you are interfering in my mission and I decide to shoot you to get you out of the way, there's nothing you or anyone else can do to stop me." He gulped nervously and nodded. "Then put that weapon down and escort me to HQ," she ordered. "I don't have time to deal with this bullshit."

She wasn't sure if it was the way she leaned in menacingly, her hand on her weapon, or the sheer threat in her words, but he shut up and saluted her with a snap. "This way, ma'am."

She caught Garrus' grin out of the corner of her eye, but she was still pissed, both at the news of a Cerberus attack coming on the heels of the Reaper one, as well as having to play the heavy on a wet-behind-the-ears soldier.

Her bad mood evaporated in an instant when she saw Admiral Anderson, however. Without thinking, she ran up to him and threw her arms around him. "You're safe!"

"Shepard," he said in amazement as he held her tightly. "What the hell are you doing on Earth? Haven't you noticed there's a war on? By the way, you'll be happy to hear that the Alliance has officially recognized the Reaper threat," he added in a tone that was simultaneously mocking and melancholy.

She barked out a humorless laugh as she stepped back and took a look at him. Dirty, but with his uniform still meticulously in place, as always. "Glad to see someone finally took me seriously."

"Oh, more than that," he said as he turned and headed back upstairs. She fell into step at his side while her squad followed close behind. "London was practically a ghost town even before the Reapers showed up. That warning gave us time to get most of the civilians out of town and stage supplies for the military."

"So does that mean you're making advances against them?"

He shook his head. "Hardly. Even a ghost town London has...had a population of over three million. Every day that damn husk army grows bigger, and there's nothing we can do about it. Pretty hard on the soldiers, too, shooting at a person who might have been someone you knew last week."

He steered them into a small conference room that held some old coffee and peanut butter sandwiches. She filled him in on the galactic preparations while he told her stories of the invasion and fall of London and other major cities. For all that interstellar communication from Earth was disrupted, oddly enough land based and satellite communications were still mostly working. Some cities had been hit harder than others. London was one of those. Others, like Houston and Rio had gotten off fairly lightly. Still, there was no doubt that Earth would fall completely unless help arrived.

"What was that I heard about a Cerberus attack?" she asked the Admiral.

"Damnedest thing," he said slowly. "They came in, knew exactly where they were headed. Stole the comm codes for the Alliance, along with a bunch of other military data. Didn't even copy it. Just grabbed the hardware and ran. Don't know how they think they're going to crack the encryption, unless they've invented the galaxy's biggest supercomputer. Lost a few good soldiers in the fight though. Which reminds me, I've got a favor to ask of you when you leave."

"Anything, sir," she said. Anderson had been her mentor for years and the closest thing to a surrogate dad she could imagine. Her own father was friendly enough, but after her parents' divorce, he and her brother had moved to Earth and she'd rarely seen him. Her mother had been posted with Anderson while she was still a starry eyed teenager intent on following in her illustrious mother's footsteps. Anderson had been the one to make sure she was on the right path and a few glowing recommendations hadn't hurt, either.

He motioned for her to follow as he headed downstairs to the infirmary. They passed the morgue on the way. The still shapes under the sheets were the first she'd seen since stepping foot on the ground. Anderson caught her curious glance and stopped. "We'll burn the bodies tonight. We can't afford for any more of them to be made into husks." They stood in silence for a moment, mourning their lost comrades and sharing an unspoken grief as well as comfort in each other's presence. After a moment, he moved on.

"The Alliance has decided to reinstate you, Shepard." He said it as if announcing the results of the local little league match.

She stopped and put her hands up. "No, no. I've already had this discussion with Admiral Hackett. I can't lead the forces I need to if I'm just an Alliance Commander. I'm sorry, sir, but I can't accept."

His wide lips twisted up in genuine humor. "Yes, I heard all about your conversation with Hackett. In great and excruciating detail. Then double that when your two classmates bailed shortly thereafter."

She grinned back, unrepentant. If Hackett got his panties in a knot, that was his own problem. The man always was uptight about everything.

Anderson continued. "Anyway, you're right. The Alliance has decided that they need someone with more authority than a mere Commander to speak for them on the War Council." He smiled as he drew himself up ramrod straight and saluted her. "Congratulations, Admiral Shepard."

Shepard swore that the room went dim and her hearing faded out. "Sir?" Surely that squeaky voice didn't belong to her?

"You heard me, Admiral." In spite of the formality of rank, Anderson was grinning at her. "Need a chair, Shepard?" he asked, only half kidding.

"You can't be serious!"

"As death," he responded. "Full vote of the remaining Alliance board, agreed on by the Premiere. "You're the first human Spectre, the one who took out the Collectors, and the one who's been warning everyone in the galaxy that this day would come. You also have the respect of every alien government. They'll listen to you, Shepard. And now you have the full support and backing of the Alliance government."

She stepped unsteadily toward a velvet covered bench near the wall and sat heavily. "You're serious?" she asked again. "Hackett never said anything..."

"He doesn't know yet. As soon as the QEC is up and running, we'll inform him as well as the Council." He sat down next to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. "I'm glad I got to be the one to tell you, child. You made me proud."

She glanced at him and was shocked to see his eyes shining as brightly as the smile on his lips. "Oh Jesus, you're serious!" she said as he pulled her into a giant hug.

He pulled one of his stars off each shoulder and handed them to her. "I'm sure I can find more somewhere in this wreck of a building," he said as he pressed them into her hand. "Don't lose those. You wouldn't want to come all the way back to Earth for a replacement set. Now come along, Admiral," he said, still grinning as he pulled her to her feet. "I still have that favor to ask you."

"You mean that wasn't it?" Her mind was still reeling from the concept. From quasi-renegade resigned soldier to Admiral was a big damn jump to make.

He put his hand on her elbow and steered her into the infirmary. "No, afraid not, Admiral."

"Please, Anderson, stop calling me that," she pleaded, only half joking.

"Gotta get you used to the rank, Admiral." He ignored the glare she shot at him. She sure as hell didn't feel like an Admiral. They stopped in front of a bed holding a bulky, tattooed man swathed in bandages. He was unconscious, but there were still lines on his face, probably from the pain of his injuries.

"Who's this?"

"Lieutenant James Vega. I want you to take him with you when you leave."

"I came here specifically to get you, Anderson."

He shook his head emphatically. "No, I'm staying here. I'm needed to coordinate the ground attacks against the Reapers and do what we can to save civilians."

"Sir..." she tried again, but he wouldn't let her go on.

"No, Shepard. I'm staying, and that's final. And don't be thinking you can order me off Earth with your new rank either. But I do want you to take this young man with you. I think it will be good for both of you."

"What's his story?" she asked.

"Special forces, Delta squad then N program. He's N6. We want you to be his mentor, make the final call. He had a bad time on Fehl Prime, made a couple of questionable calls in a no-win situation. I'm not sure he can get over it, but if anyone can guide him through, it's you, Shepard."

Good qualifications, and she could certainly sympathize with making tough calls in bad situations. "Long as he doesn't need more care than our Med Bay can provide, he can come along."

Anderson nodded. "It took a direct order to get him to lay down here instead of the barracks we set up on the sixth floor. He needs a purpose, and you need good men at your side. Besides," he added with a sly grin, "he's got a bad case of hero worship for you. Do him good to see the woman behind the hero." He dropped his hand to an unbandaged shoulder. "Reveille time, Vega. Rise and shine."

"Five more minutes, pa," came the sleepy response.

"Five more minutes and your hero's gonna head back to her shuttle and leave your lazy ass here with me, Vega. Open your eyes."

One brown eye cracked open suspiciously. "Hero?  _Qué chingados!_  Shepard? That really you?"

She smirked. "In the cybernetic flesh. Tell me, Vega. Is that how you greet all your commanding officers? Half naked, lounging around and begging for more sleep?"

His eyes opened wider. "Oh shit, sorry, Commander. Wait...um...wait!" He struggled out from the tangled sheet in such a hurry that he almost fell to the floor and looked around for his clothes. He was wearing nothing more than a pair of briefs, and she noted he definitely didn't skip leg day. She tried to hide her amusement as he hopped awkwardly into his pants, nearly falling down into the nearby chair. "Sorry, Commander. Just a second. Where'd they stick my boots? Sorry," he muttered again as he stuck his head under the bed.

Her lips twitched in suppressed humor as she watched the marine struggle to pull himself together as fast as possible. To his credit, he managed to find his boots and get dressed in less than sixty seconds. Not bad, considering he could barely move his right arm. "Admiral Anderson tells me you're a good man to have in a firefight. That true?"

"You bet your ass, Commander. Um, I mean, yes, ma'am." He stood at attention, gaze fixed over her shoulder.

Anderson cleared his throat meaningfully, drawing Vega's attention. "I should inform you, lieutenant, that Shepard has been promoted. You should address her as Admiral. When you can be bothered with formalities," he added cheerfully. To Shepard, "Our lieutenant here has a slight problem conforming to protocol. Fortunately, his other skills make up for his appalling lack."

"I do try, sir," Vega responded, still at attention, but she could see the flash of humor in his dark brown eyes. She wondered if he'd known Anderson long enough to get away with his insubordination, or if he simply treated everyone with the same lack of respect. She shrugged to herself. It's not like she was running the tightest ship in the fleet anymore. He'd fit in well enough. She hoped.

She turned back to Anderson. "Sir, I know you said you wanted to stay, but..."

He shook his head, the look on his face saying more than any words could. She understood. He was responsible here, the highest ranking officer left alive. These were his troops, and he would lead them until the end, whatever that may be.

Slowly, she drew up into a proper salute. "Admiral."

He returned it. "Admiral." Then he smiled and pulled her into a hug. "Now get out there and kick some Reaper ass," he commanded.

"Yes, sir!" She gestured for Vega to fall in with the rest of her squad. "You heard the man. We've got our orders."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Orchidellia, my beta reader for all her help, insight and guidance.
> 
> Qué chingados! - What the fuck?


	46. Empty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard aims to save Thane and Mordin.

"… _latest update on the Reapers, here's Emily Wong."_

" _Thanks, Edward. We have footage from Thessia of the Reapers landing just hours ago. Communication is still good, and we have several clips of asari resistance fighters in the major cities on our news site. Meanwhile, Earth and Palaven are suffering massive casualties every day although we are still getting word of organized ground resistance across both planets. Sur'Kesh, all major colonies and all other other homeworlds are still clear._

" _There was some good news from a fleet spokesperson earlier this morning. He announced that the combined fleets have destroyed eight Reapers so far – six on the ground on Earth and two of the larger ones in orbit. The fleet spokesman says that a push for Palaven is being planned as we speak..."_

Hama pointed at the screen as it switched to a mixed group of humans, asari, turians and krogans celebrating a victory. "Look, Kol. It's Rina!"

"Who?" he mumbled without looking up from his screen.

"Rina Savickas. The one who Shepard sent me to train with while we were on Omega. The news is saying her team managed to kill a Reaper."

Kolyat just grunted, completely lost in the data he had been trying, and failing, to decipher for the past week.

Kasumi lounged against the conference room table. "More than one," she said. "And that news is over a day old. If she's anything like Shepard, her team's probably taken down a dozen or more by now."

Every available surface in the Normandy's conference room was completely covered with data screens, most of them showing only encrypted gibberish. In the last week, the Normandy had been to the Perseus Veil as well as Rannoch to check with the geth on both Retribution as well as the geth fighter fleets, so Kolyat was taking advantage of every spare moment to crack through Milar's encryption on the two data sets she had sent him. It kept his mind off of his father's condition, although Shepard had copied him on every communication from the salarian doctor. At least they were finally on their way to Sur'Kesh, and he would be able to see his father.

Meanwhile he had roped Hama and Kasumi into helping him. The data set that had sent them running to the Normandy had been fairly easy to break through once EDI got hold of it. He had been fairly sure that Sokje had been lying about it being a hit list, but he had to admit he breathed easier when he saw for himself that it was nothing of the sort. It had been data from Poourdmet's personal files that implicated it and several of its companions in planning a second coup. Through EDI, he had sent it to the hanar ambassador, but there was nothing else he could do with it. Kahje was days away at this point.

He and EDI had turned to the data disc with his family's history and the encrypted subdirectories. His skill at decryption was growing by leaps and bounds, but it wasn't enough to break Milar's security. Hama had taken several turns at it, but had no more luck. She was much more relaxed now that Kasumi had relayed her mother's message and she knew that her mother was alive and on Kahje, even if there had been no further communication.

Kolyat stood abruptly and stomped to a screen in the corner. "EDI, what if we apply the Frankel application to this file and cross reference with this one here?"

"I will try, Kolyat, but so far, most files have been quantum encrypted. Without the pass code, it will take thousands of years to decipher the key."

The blue drell leaned in and banged his head against the wall. "Why? Why would she give me this and quantum encrypt it?" he muttered. The pass code could be anything: a picture, a phrase, a musical passage, a star map. Without it, the likelihood of breaking the encryption was practically nil. But she had given it to him for a reason, which made him think there was a way to break the encryption. He just had to figure it out.

"You've already got the files that show your history, Kol. Don't you think that would be enough to force some changes in the Compact?"

He winced as he turned his head to look at Hama. "I doubt it. It's just one story, and if I bring it forward, they'll accuse me of having a personal vendetta against the Compact. And they'd be right. I need more!"

Hama walked across the room and studied one of the cleared files. There had been a handful on the disc that had been locked with less secure encryption, and they had opened them early on. Frowning, she scrolled through it, and then clicked a link to another file of a different type. "EDI," she asked, "can you bring up the pass code file?"

A new screen flickered into life above the conference table. It had the pass code file at the center and dozens of lines connecting it to other locked files. "It's very small. From what I can tell, most of it consists of links to other files," EDI said. "The key must also be very small. That reduces the number of variables significantly, but there are still too many options for a brute force solution."

Kasumi slid off the table to get a closer look. "It must be something you already have," she reasoned. "Are you sure that Milar didn't give you some clue?"

Kolyat closed his eyes as he forced his memories back through all his interactions with the spy. There were dozens of conversations, starting with the first night he had walked Hama home, and the next day when Milar recruited him to the embassy out of C-sec. Most of her conversations were circuitous; he might not decipher her meaning until hours later, but in no instance he could recall, did anything pertain to this disc. He thought back to that day in the movie theater and reread her email in his thoughts. He opened his eyes suddenly and stared directly at Hama. "You," he said.

She stared back uncomprehending.

"In her last email to me she said that she gave me everything I need. She also gave me you and told me to take care of you. Her wording was very precise. You're the key, Hama. I'm sure of it," he finished intensely.

The younger drell opened and closed her mouth but didn't actually say anything.

"It has to be her," Kolyat said to Kasumi. "Her picture?"

The thief shook her head. "Doubtful. Too easy to copy and why would Milar go to all that trouble of encrypting it if the key could be something anyone could get. It has to be something only Hama knows or can do."

"Fingerprints?"

"Same problem," Kasumi said. "Hama, think. It's there anything special that your mother shared just with you?"

Hama frowned in concentration. "I can't think of anything. She was always so busy. Even the last few months when I was learning voice control from her, that's all we did."

Kolyat came over and took her hand. "Did she say anything to you after I left all those evenings when she and I talked?"

Hama's eyes unfocused as she searched her memories. " _You, Thane and Shepard came for dinner. Mom asked for Shepard's help. Your father offered you money. You turned him down. You left with your father, to Shepard's surprise. My mom asked me which conversation I listened to. I said both. Good night..._ " She blinked and looked at Kasumi. " _You enter the Normandy. I'm bored, but can't leave the Normandy to go onto the Citadel. You're Hama? you ask. I met your mother. She said to tell you that she loves her little tadpole._ " Hama shook her head as she pulled back from the memory. "My little tadpole," she said again.

"Access granted," EDI said, and all three of them turned to look at the graphic hovering above the conference room table and watched it light up and illuminate the lines leading from it to other files. One by one, the screens around the room resolved into legible text. "The key was a voice print of Hama speaking the pass code."

Kolyat grabbed Hama's face and gave her a big kiss on the cheek. "You're wonderful!" he shouted as he jumped up to look at the screens. "EDI, did that unlock everything?"

"Yes, Kolyat. It will take an additional four minutes to decrypt all the files. There are several petabytes of data here."

Hama followed him more slowly. "I don't understand. She's been calling me that since I was a baby, even after I grew up and hated it. Calling me that my whole life just to have a pass code when she needs it?"

Kolyat gave her a sideways glance. "Your mother's long range planning is scary, Hama."

"I know. I'm beginning to wonder just how much I really know my mother."

* * *

"You know I'm going to challenge you on pullups as soon as Chakwas clears you on that arm injury, right?" Shepard teased Vega. They were both in the hangar deck. Shepard was doing some inventory, and Vega was looking longingly at the pullup bar.

He just grinned and flexed his left bicep for her. "Better start practicing now, Lola. Those skinny little arms of yours are gonna give out after a couple dozen."

She laughed and flexed both arms back at him. "These skinny little arms have kicked more butt in the past year than you have in the past ten, Vega."

"I still say your guns ain't big enough to do the job, Admiral. Respectfully, ma'am."

She laughed again. "Good thing you made sure to tell me you're respectful, Vega. Otherwise, I'd have you thrown off the ship for insubordination. How in the world did you ever manage to make it as long as you did without getting bounced?"

"My handsome looks?" he said waggling his eyebrows and making his pecs jump under his form-fitting white t-shirt.

"Nice try, gaucho, but I'm immune. So I suggest you make yourself useful instead. Here." She tossed him a box. "Take that up to the armory. I picked out a couple of new scopes, and I want to try them out. Big strong soldier boy like yourself should be able to handle that." She didn't miss the flash of resentment that came and went across his expressive features. "You got a problem, Vega?"

He hesitated as if weighing the merits of voicing a complaint to his new CO. After a moment, he shrugged as if to say the hell with it. "Listen, Lola, you sure about that Cerberus flunky running the armory?"

Her features hardened, and she saw Vega flinch slightly. "First, Lieutenant, when bringing a complaint to me about another crew member, you will address me by rank, not whatever nickname you happen to choose at the time. Second, Jacob Taylor has been to hell and back at my side while you have been on my ship for less than a week. Do not presume that because I agreed to mentor you through N6 that you can question my personnel assignments. Third, you will not address any member of my crew as flunky or any other derogatory nickname in my hearing. Or anywhere on this ship, actually. Is that clear, Lieutenant?" she asked in a voice so sharp and cold that it could cut.

He drew himself up into a precise military salute. "Ma'am. Yes, ma'am."

She let him sweat it out for a moment. "Very well. To answer your question, no matter how crudely you put it, Mr. Taylor is a damn fine armory officer. He has more than earned his place at my side and on this crew."

Vega's eyes were fixed on the far hangar wall. "Ma'am, permission to speak?" She nodded. "Ma'am, my previous Commander was killed in the Cerberus raid on HQ last week. How do you know that you can trust him?"

"How do I know that I can trust you, Vega?"

He gave her a startled look. "Admiral, you know who I am..."

"Do I? I know your service history, but I know nothing about you. How do I know you're not a deep Cerberus plant, maneuvered onto my ship to cause the greatest damage when I least expect it?"

His mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out. She continued. "I trust my experience, Mr. Vega. I've been with Jacob for over a year, been in multiple firefights with him. Did you not get to know your brothers in arms well enough to trust them?"

His mouth was set in a straight line.

"A commander has to be able to understand their troops, especially if they are going into battle. With luck, you can accomplish part of that before you actually see the enemy by talking to and understanding your troops. "She paused, but he kept staring at the far wall. "You will take that box to the armory and assist Mr. Taylor in assembling them. I think you can manage that task, Lieutenant." Unspoken was the subtext that he had better damn well manage it, no matter what his personal feelings were.

"Yes, ma'am." He saluted again and turned in a crisp military step and headed to the lift. When the door closed behind him, she sank down onto a crate.

She'd already had a heart to heart with Jacob after London. He'd apologized, even though she told him he had nothing to apologize for. He'd even offered to remove the Cerberus logo from his uniforms, but she told him she trusted him and didn't care who signed his paycheck. He'd left, but she wasn't sure he was at ease with the new situation of her reinstatement. Hell, she wasn't all that comfortable with it, either.

The only good thing was that they were finally headed to Sur'Kesh. She'd been messaging Mordin at least twice a day. His responses were brief and for the most part unchanging. Yesterday, Mordin had removed Thane from the respirator, but that was the only bit of good news. When she asked him why it was taking so long, he pointed out that Miranda had had her on the operating table for over three months in the same state Thane was in now, and it had only been a few weeks for Thane. It still didn't make her feel better. She was determined that she would get both Thane and Mordin on the Normandy. With Thessia under attack, it was only a matter of time before the Reapers came to Sur'Kesh

 _Please_ , she prayed with eyes closed, and somewhat begrudgingly admitted it actually was a prayer, but she directed it at Thane's goddess.  _Please let him wake up soon. I need him._ She allowed her mind to drift backward, thinking with pleasure of all their nights and days together. The still moments were the ones that captured her thoughts the most, the quiet times spent just talking or leaning against each other watching a vid in her cabin.  _Please, please, please_ , she prayed with all her heart. She wanted to feel that simple joy again so badly.

"Come in, Shepard." Tali's teasing voice penetrated her pensive fog and she blinked to see the quarian standing in front of her with one hand on a cocked hip.

"What's up, Tali?"

"Maybe I should be asking you? Pleasant thoughts?" she asked. "You had a very happy smile on your face."

"Thane."

"Ahhh." Really, that was all that needed to be said. She knew from the small touches on her hand by Tali, the quick hugs from Garrus, and even the extra pieces of chocolate Gardner slipped her on occasion that the crew hoped for the best for him, and that brought her almost as much warmth and hope as anything else.

"What are you doing down here, Tali?"

"Looking for a T93 power coupling. I was talking with Donnelly, and we think we can eek a few more ergs of power out of the Tantalus core."

"How did it feel being the first quarian to walk on Rannoch in centuries?"

Tali sighed heavily and moved to sit next to Shepard, nudging her over with her hip. "It was wonderful. It was also so sad, Shepard. It is my people's homeworld, but controlled by the geth. And yet...they've taken care of it, just waiting for the day when maybe we can speak to them. I saw things, Shepard. In the historical servers. The history we've been taught...it is not the history the geth recorded. I want us to go home. Legion even said that the geth will not oppose the return of the creators, but that there must be assurances that the creators, that we, will stop trying to destroy or control them." She sighed again and leaned her elbows on her knees as she slouched down. "I fear it will take another three hundred years to convince my people that we have been wrong." She paused and Shepard let the silence grow as the young woman sought words for her thoughts. "It is very hard to admit when one has made a mistake. And the magnitude of this one...keelah."

Shepard wrapped an arm around Tali and hugged tight. "War has a way of crystallizing things, Tali. I'm sure we can make the Admiralty see the necessity of making peace with the geth if they want to survive this war with the Reapers."

Tali snorted indelicately. "And how much of that common sense did you see in the diplomatic ship yesterday, Shepard?"

The Admiral's hand fell away as she added her own heavy sigh. "Was Admiral Laal'Brakk really the best choice to send? He wasn't very open minded. Wouldn't even come aboard the Normandy with Legion here."

"Brakk's an ass," Tali bit out angrily. "They shouldn't have sent him."

"I've already sent a message to the rest of the Admiralty that they can help us or they can get out of the way, but they'd better not do anything else. I've wasted enough time with them already. I swear Laal'Brakk talks more than anyone I've met, and I've met a lot of politicians over the last year. A whole day with him, and he didn't move an inch." Shepard jumped off the crate. "I'm sorry, Tali, but if your people can't put aside their hatred, I can't spare any more resources or time trying to convince them. It's going to have to be up to you."

The quarian's shoulders bowed even further under the heavy weight of that impossible task. "I...I will try, Shepard."

"I know, Tali. I have faith in you."

As Shepard headed back to the upper decks, Tali wished she had the same faith in herself.

* * *

"Jump in three...two...one..." Joker's voice counted down the time to the relay jump to Sur'Kesh, and Shepard braced for the momentary disorientation it always brought to her. Thousands of light years crossed in a microsecond. It was staggering to think about, so mostly she didn't. Instead, she focused on the fact that after so many days, she was finally able to turn to Sur'Kesh with a clear conscience and would soon be at Thane's side. Her spirits were further buoyed by Mordin's last message, and she swore to her god and Thane's that this time, nothing would keep them apart, even if she had to drag Mordin, Thane's hospital bed and the whole damned ward on board the Normandy.

Her cabin's private comm beeped with a message from Joker. She put aside the files on the asari resistance she had been reading to answer it.

"We've got a problem, Shepard. The Reapers are already here!"

* * *

"You have to let me come, too, Shepard." Kolyat stared her down as she prepared to get into the shuttle and head to the surface. He was already dressed in his armored leathers and had a pistol on his hip and a shotgun across his back.

She turned toward Jacob and raised a questioning eyebrow. He just shrugged, in effect, telling her that he agreed with Kolyat, otherwise, he wouldn't have released the weapons.

Garrus, Grunt, and Jacob were already in the shuttle. She took a look at them, then the interior of the shuttle. "If I take you, that's one less person I can evacuate from Sur'Kesh," she told him.

"He's my father," Kolyat added firmly, although she could hear the urgency and pleading that he wouldn't actively voice.

She took another measuring look at the young drell, taking in his resolute expression. She jerked her head to the interior of the shuttle. "Get in."

He looked nervous but proud as he jumped into the shuttle.

The trip to the planet's surface was tense. She was torn between despair at the latest news from Sur'Kesh and a profound, even if it was hopelessly optimistic, belief that everything would turn out fine. Communication from the government had been sporadic and disheartening, and she had been unable to reach Mordin at all.

As they came near the surface, she studied the city along with Garrus and Jacob. It was overrun with salarian husks along with a few other varieties of Reaper soldiers they had started seeing pop up.

"Here." She pointed out a relatively flat and open location near the hospital. "Set us down there," she ordered the pilot. Turning to her squad, she told them, "Kill every enemy, but be careful. Hopefully there are still some civilians down there. We'll do what we can for them, but our mission is to gain the hospital, find Thane and Mordin and get out." She could feel adrenaline flooding her body in preparation for combat.

She glanced around at her squad, seeing their acknowledgement and support. "This won't be an easy mission," she warned them. "Stay together and support each other." The pilot gave a five second warning. She looked at Kolyat, seeing the mixture of hope, determination and fear written on his face. "Kolyat, stay with Jacob...and don't get in front of me."

The door slid open, and they jumped to the streets below. The shuttle took off again to hover nearby until they needed pickup. Unfortunately, the roar of the shuttle engines had attracted the attention of every salarian husk in the nearby area. The hospital was only a couple hundred meters to their west, but meandering trails over swampy ground and several smaller outbuildings stood in their way, and husks were emptying out of each building.

She ran up to the entrance of the main walkway, her pistol already in hand and dropping husk after husk. But for every one that fell into the murky waters below, another two ran forward with an awkward lurching gait, hands outstretched to drag them all away. She felt her squad at her back. Garrus had his SMG out since there were so many that his sniper rifle would have been useless. She heard Grunt roaring in wordless challenge at any who dared approach. She caught an occasional glimpse of Jacob and Kolyat as she dodged and struck out at the numerous husks that were in her path. Fortunately, these husks weren't much different from human ones; their main threat lay in their sheer numbers.

For Shepard, the world narrowed down to the raised path with the hospital entrance at its end. Biotics, weapons, blades - all were used with ruthless efficiency against the abominations who charged mindlessly. It felt as if there were an invisible rope tugging her forward, and the husks flew away into the water or fell beneath her feet.

Subjective time slowed to a crawl until they gained the hospital doors. They were shattered inwards, and if she had allowed her mind to process that thought to its logical end, she would have been terrified, but all she could afford to think about were the enemies, both inside and out. Fortunately, there were only a couple of husks wandering aimlessly through the lobby, easily dispatched by precise headshots. When she turned back, Grunt and Garrus were already finding something to block the door while the other two provided cover.

"That won't hold long, Shepard," Garrus warned.

She nodded. "Let's go." Heavy footsteps pounded down the darkened corridor as she led them to Thane's room. An uneasy feeling stirred in her stomach as they ran through the deserted hallways. All around was evidence of a hasty departure. Data pads were scattered on the floor. Crates half-filled with supplies sat abandoned at a nurses' station.

Her footsteps quickened as she saw Thane's room just ahead. She crashed through the door and came to a sudden stop.

Empty.

She sagged against the door frame as her legs turned to jelly beneath her. The room was just...empty. The only sign her beloved assassin had ever been here was the medical equipment that was now shoved haphazardly back against the wall.

"Garrus?" She hated that her voice wavered, and hated even more that she couldn't stop it. She bit off the rest of her question, but he answered her anyway.

"This is a good sign, Shepard. They evacuated in time."

"Where?" she rasped harshly.

Even though she couldn't see his expression through his helmet, the slow shake of his head confirmed what she didn't want to accept. Without communications, there was no way of knowing where the STG had taken Thane, and Sur'Kesh was a large, swampy planet full of hiding places.

"EDI, search and ping all available bandwidth for Mordin. He's got to be here somewhere!"

The ship's response came quickly. "Shepard, I can do that, but that will compromise our stealth systems and make it easy for the Reapers to triangulate our position. Do you wish to proceed?"

A massive fist twisted her insides as she considered the consequences, but she couldn't help it. There was no choice for her. "Do it."

"Acknowledged, Shepard. We will have approximately thirty minutes before the Reapers can find us and close on our position."

Garrus shook her shoulder. "We should head to the roof for a pickup. Hopefully by then, EDI will have some intel."

She spun around and headed for the stairs. Thane was out there somewhere. She had to believe that they would find him. He had to still be alive!

It was a grueling sprint to the roof, but even after they were on the shuttle, she couldn't get her heart to slow down. "EDI?"

"I've located Professor Solus' personal signature. It's not far from your location, Shepard."

She sagged in relief against the bulkhead. "Oh thank god," she whispered.  _Finally, finally, finally_  beat in her mind to the same over-eager rhythm as her heart.

Mordin's signature was in the middle of a small village a few klicks from the hospital, but neither Shepard nor EDI could get a response from him. She didn't care. They'd track him down and escort him back to the shuttle and go from there.

The husks proved no problem aside from their numbers, but suddenly the walkway ahead of them exploded from incoming artillery fire. Her squad scattered to take cover, and Garrus had his sniper rifle out to get a better look. "Ravager." He squeezed off several rounds and grimaced. "Incoming swarmers," he warned.

"Focus on taking down the ravager, Garrus," she ordered. "We'll take care of the rest."

Ravagers were nasty enemies derived from the captive rachni taken from Novaria. They'd only encountered them a few times, but each time was hairy. They had long distance artillery fire, and when approached would release a deadly swarm of smaller creatures that could easily overwhelm shields. She could see some swarmers already scurrying through the husks to attack them. "Grenade!" she yelled as she tossed an incineration grenade down the walkway. Behind her, Garrus' sniper rifle paused as he waited for the fireball to clear before he resumed picking at the ravager.

"Dropped it!" His announcement lacked its usual bradaggio, but that was probably because they were about to be engulfed in a wave of husks and swarmers. Shepard reached for another grenade, but Kolyat beat her to the punch by releasing an incinerate wave that toppled most of the swarmers and a goodly percentage of the husks. She spared him a brief nod in thanks before moving forward again.

The building with Mordin's signature was just ahead. It was a rounded one story building standing on pylons over the swamp. She sliced through a husk that moved too slowly and kicked another one into the murky green water to flounder and sink.

The building was locked. She knew who could take care of that. "Grunt!" He chuckled and brought his Claymore up to aim at the door. "Wait!" Kolyat tried to interject, but Grunt blew a hole in the door. "I could have hacked it open," Kolyat groused.

"I'll keep that in mind for next time," she said without looking back. "Mordin!" she shouted. "Where are you? Thane?" The building was unpowered, but sunlight streamed through a few windows set high in the wall.

"Pfagh!" Kolyat stepped back with a hand over his mouth and nose. "Shepard..."

Her eyes told her what he smelled. Death. The shapes lying on the floor were unmoving. "No! No, no, no," she mumbled as she stepped into the building. "Mordin? Thane?" A beep directed her to Mordin's omni tool. She found the professor slumped against the far wall, trauma from a harsh fight evident all over his body. His omni tool was still powered on, but the professor would never again use it. "Oh god, Mordin," she choked out. She couldn't tell how long it had been, probably only an hour or two.

She whirled in place and pulled out a flashlight. She walked around, playing the light across the bodies, both looking for and dreading a flash of viridian green against a sea of salarian orange and brown. Kolyat was frantically opening the door on the far side with the same intent.

"He's not here!" She was relieved even as the desperation to find her lover grew exponentially. He was out there. Somewhere. And his protector was lying here dead. Her flashlight fell to the floor as the shock caught up with her, and she just stood staring sightlessly at Mordin's body. A few hours earlier might have made all the difference. Those few hours that the damn quarian delegate had wasted with his pointless fears and arrogant demands! A growl built up in her throat, and if Laal'Brakk had been in front of her at that second, he would be joining Mordin on the floor with a bullet hole through his mask.

Kolyat reappeared, and even though she knew better than to allow that momentary hope, it still came, only to devastate her further when he shook his head.

"Shepard, we have to go!" Garrus was shouting now. "Our position is going to be overrun. We have to retreat back to the LZ."

The thought of leaving Thane penetrated her fog and quickly roused her to action. She ran back to the door to see for herself the advancing horde of husks, and in the distance she could see a praetorian floating closer. "We can't leave yet!" she yelled at him while firing at the nearest husk. "Garrus, I have to find him!" That need was paramount in her, body, mind and soul. Thane was somewhere on this mudball, likely nearby. She refused to abandon him to the Reapers.

"We're not going to find him in the middle of all this! We have to retreat so we have a chance to come back, Shepard." Her squad mates were at her side, protecting her and each other even as she tried to refute Garrus' logic.

"What if he's hurt, Garrus?" She couldn't help the heart-broken pleading that carried in her voice, and right now, she didn't care that she wasn't being the stoic, ice-cold leader for her squad. Her blood was burning hot in her body, and with every advancing, lurching step of the enemy, the odds of saving Thane were sinking lower and lower.

Garrus was gruff when he answered. He'd been in this situation before. "He's not here, Shepard. There's nothing we can do except try to survive ourselves. We have to go. Now!"

Their positions were reversed. He was the level-headed commander and she the brash soldier ready to abandon her duty for her own selfish reasons. He sensed it when she took a step toward the enemies and away from the LZ. He wrapped his hand around her arm and shoved her backwards. "Shepard, I swear by all the spirits of Palaven that if you don't head back to the LZ this second, I will knock you unconscious and have Grunt haul you back." There was a very deep, threatening burr in his flanging voice that told her he wasn't joking. In spite of that, she paused, gaging the strength of the enemy in front of her. " _Hadeas!"_  Garrus shoved her again, much harder this time. "Everyone, back to the LZ," he ordered, not caring that he was usurping command.

Grunt hesitated a second before Jacob pushed at his shoulder and they turned to start clearing a path through the enemy. Kolyat stood defiantly next to Shepard. "You, too, Krios. Move it!" Garrus yelled.

"I go with Shepard," the blue drell said, not backing down one bit.

Garrus snarled and shook her shoulder. "Is this what you want, Shepard? You want to be responsible for the death of Thane's son, as well as your own?"

She stared at the turian, mouth opening and closing abruptly in shock. She turned to see Kolyat standing by her side and offering silent support. No, she couldn't do it. For Thane's sake, if nothing else. Feeling as though she were swallowing ground glass, she nodded. "Back to the LZ."

The three of them ran to catch up with Grunt and Jacob. Shepard barely paid attention to the trip back to the LZ. Resistance was light since most of the enemy was now behind them. Instead, even though she should have been focusing on staying alive, she trusted to her squad mates to clear the path. She stumbled into the shuttle and collapsed onto the seat. When Garrus tried to lay a comforting hand on her shoulder, she shrugged him away violently. Thane was down there somewhere, and she was breaking every promise she'd made to him by leaving. She didn't want comfort. She didn't want logic. She didn't want to hear that they didn't have any other choice.

EDI pinged them over the comm as they approached. "Shepard, I have been searching for Thane's signature as well, but no luck. His omni tool is not connected to the local network. I have no way to locate him."

She heard but couldn't respond. Joker spoke next. "Admiral, the Reapers have located us and a capital class ship is headed in our direction. You need to get back here pronto."

She felt cold and empty inside. The hope she had been holding onto for weeks disintegrated like dust in the wind. For the first time, the reality that she might never see Thane again started to sink in, and she was afraid she would crack into hundreds of tiny pieces.

When they disembarked, Joker immediately asked where their next destination was. She simply stood and stared at the far wall of the hanger. Intellectually she knew they had to leave the system to save the Normandy and her crew.  _The greater good is paramount,_  she thought dimly. But she couldn't bring herself to actually issue the order that would take her away from Thane.

Once again, Garrus came to her rescue. "Set course for the Citadel, Joker. There's a War Council meeting tomorrow that Shepard needs to attend."

There was only the slightest hesitation before Joker acknowledged the command. "Aye, aye. Course set."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the game limits you to two squad members per mission, but this is my story, and we already know the shuttle can hold many more people. So Shepard will bring along as many squad members as she thinks are needed to do the job. Sometimes two, sometimes four, sometimes all of them. Also, this chapter was hard to write. Even though I knew what was coming, the words just didn't want to come.
> 
> Thanks to Orchidellia for all the great comments and feedback.


	47. Tears of an Angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard and Kolyat talk.

Kolyat wandered aimlessly through the mess hall until Garrus spotted him and waved him over. "How you holding up, kid?"

He was so distracted that the nickname didn't make him bristle the way it usually did. He searched inside for an answer, mulling and discarding multiple options. Sad? Yes, but so much more than that. Disappointed? That didn't begin to cover the depth of feelings. He finally settled on, "Lost."

"Yeah, you're not the only one." Garrus stretched his legs out underneath the table and glanced toward the ceiling. Kolyat knew exactly what he meant. The empty look on Shepard's face when they disembarked from the shuttle still haunted him.

"There's still hope, you know," Garrus continued. "The STG are wily bastards, and they've been planning for everything conceivable, and some things not, for years. When we hear from Thane, you can be sure that Shepard will come back immediately to pick him up, and no force in the galaxy will stop her. This is just temporary."

Kolyat wondered if the turian was talking to him or to the absent Admiral. "Everything has been temporary for weeks now. Plans change constantly. It doesn't seem like anyone actually has a plan."

Garrus shifted in his chair. "That's the nature of war. You make a plan, you try to stick to it, but something always happens. That's when you rely on training and luck." He laughed briefly. "Don't let Shepard hear you say that. She reamed your dad out good for saying that to her after a mission once."

Kolyat frowned. "I thought they always got along."

Garrus shook his head. "Nope, not in everything. He'd get mad at her for taking too many risks on a mission. She'd say he was being too conservative. And don't get her started on religion. I don't know how Thane managed to have civil discourse with that woman on some of those topics," he chuckled.

"What else?" Kolyat asked. He was desperately curious to know more about his father and hoped he could prod more information out of the turian who had served with him for a year.

He was sorely disappointed when Garrus shook his head. "You want to know more, you should talk to Shepard."

"I can't..."

"Why not?"

The young man shrugged uncomfortably. "What would I say?"

"You could start with 'I know how you feel.' Or 'We'll hear from him soon.' Or just go up and keep her company. You don't want to be alone, do you? What makes you think she does?"

"She's up in her cabin by herself. If she wanted company, wouldn't she be down here in the mess?"

Garrus shook his head and gave the drell a melancholy smile. "You don't get the luxury of seeking comfort in public when you're the one in command. At least not often. That's why Thane was so good for her. She's carrying a huge burden, and it helps to have someone to share it with." He nodded his head toward the lift. "Go on. It'll be good for both of you."

Kolyat hesitated, and Garrus gestured again, this time more forcefully. Dragging his feet, he headed toward the lift. The entire ride, he tried to figure out what to say that didn't sound trite or scared or complaining. He came up with nothing. His hand hovered over the call button on the Admiral's cabin, and he nearly turned around twice, but he finally gave a mental shrug and pushed it. Somewhat to his surprise, the door slid open.

"That you, Garrus?"

Kolyat stepped in, surprised to see the spacious room, especially the huge fish tank that dominated the entire side of the cabin. In front of him was an empty desk and a display case that held several model ships. Something odd about one of the silhouettes caught his attention, and when he looked closer, he saw that several of the ships appeared to have been broken and put back together.

"I'm guessing you're not Garrus. Come on down." Shepard sounded tired, but not annoyed so he made his tentative way down the stairs. There was a large bed, but it was empty. He looked around and saw Shepard huddled into the corner of a large black couch with her knees pulled up to her chest. "Kolyat? What brings you up here?"

"I..." He cursed Garrus for sending him up here and himself for pushing the button when he had no idea what to say.

She looked at him with red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes. He wasn't all that familiar with humans, but even he could tell she had been crying. "Garrus talk you into coming up?"

He nodded ruefully and she laughed once, although there wasn't much humor in it. "Figures. Have a seat."

He sat down stiffly on the edge of the sectional and put his hands on his knees. The silence hung heavy over them both and he searched desperately for something to say. "Nice cabin." He dropped his head a fraction and groaned inwardly. Seriously? That was the best he could come up with?

The corners of her mouth twitched upwards. "Yeah, Cerberus spared no expense in spoiling me rotten trying to convert me to their side. Of course, I paid for it in other ways."

"Like what?"

"Being the Illusive Man's errand girl and retrieving his lost property or helping out his operations. Give and take, Kolyat. That's what makes the world go round," she said with a heavy sigh.

"I thought it was supposed to be love," he remarked.

She raised an eyebrow. "I didn't take you for a romantic at heart."

"What can I say? I'm full of hidden surprises."

That finally got a real laugh out of her. "Really? What else?"

"I draw."

"Draw what?"

"Everything. People, mostly."

Now she looked intrigued. He was glad to see the sadness disappear, even if just for a moment. "Why's that?"

He shrugged. "I like inventing stories about them. Trying to figure out who they are and why they do the things they do."

"Why would a drell need to draw a picture of someone? Can't you just remember what they look like whenever you want?"

He shook his head. "It's not the same. I want to capture a specific moment in time and add something to it, to make it more than just the memory in my mind. I want to bring out what's inside them and put it on the page."

She considered that for a moment. "If you ever feel like showing off your work, I'd love to see it. I'd like to see how you interpret what's inside someone's head."

"Next time you stop by Life Support, I'll show you," he offered.

They fell into a conversational lull and just sat for a moment, but this time, the silence was a little easier to bear. He finally leaned back against the couch and watched the fish swimming around in her tank. It was full of different kinds of fish, plants and corals and formed an ever-changing vista suffused with soft blue light.

"How you holding up, Kolyat?" The words startled him and he looked over at her. She had her arms wrapped around her legs and her chin resting on her knees. Briefly he thought back to all the different times he'd seen her and realized that this was the first time he'd ever seen her sitting quietly. She was constant movement and energy, in armor or out of it. Even when she was sitting, her hands would be moving in conversation or she would reach out to touch someone. Tonight, she looked pale, beaten, and so much smaller than he remembered.

"I was supposed to ask you that."

"I asked first."

"Hrmph." A pause. "Not good, to be honest."

"Same here." There was too much to be said, too many heavy emotions tangled around each of them and it acted like a damper on their conversation. He kept trying to think of things to say, but nothing felt right. He tried to figure out what was going through her mind, but he was afraid to make assumptions with her.

"Do you really think he's safe?" He had so many questions and thoughts chasing each other in his mind that this one slipped out before he could censor it. He mentally cursed himself for bringing up such a difficult question, but he also couldn't deny that it was the one that was screaming loudest in his mind.

She sighed and dropped her head forward until her forehead was resting on her knees. "I hope so," came her muffled response. "I have to believe that he is. Because otherwise..."

"Otherwise?" he prodded with the same sick feeling of pulling off a scab before it was ready. He knew he shouldn't, but he couldn't stop himself.

"What if the Reapers got him, Kolyat? What if I'm on the battlefield and I see him, twisted and deformed?" Her breath hitched, and when she spoke, it was in a whisper. "I wouldn't be able to pull the trigger."

Kolyat could picture it in his mind and immediately winced away, trying to think of something...anything else. After a long, uncomfortable pause, he said slowly, "I could."

She tilted her head up to look at him. "Really? Your own father?"

He thinned his lips out as he shook his head. "If that happened to him, he wouldn't be my father anymore. You'd pull the trigger, too. You'd have to. It would be you or him."

She dropped her head again. "Maybe. I just don't know."

"Then let's hope the STG is as good as you say they are," he told her.

"They are. I've met several. Mordin, Kirrahe, Bau. They're all impressive, they're sneaky as hell, and never count them out. They have centuries of experience at beating the odds."

"I hope so, Shepard. I really do." He plucked at his pants, not sure what else to say. The normally gregarious Admiral was definitely off her game tonight. In all his time with her, he'd never had to be the one to carry a conversation. In that respect, she was like Hama, always with something to say, and he could simply listen and interject when he felt like it. These long silences were unusual from her and left him feeling like he was floundering in deep water. He stared at the fish tank again, thankful to have anything else to focus on other than the woman sitting across from him.

Just when he thought he couldn't take another moment of the silence and started framing his goodbyes in his head, she threw an explosive question at him. "Are you mad at me?"

What? Where did that come from, he wondered. Or was it her own guilt talking? "No," he answered automatically.

She just continued looking at him. "It's okay. I'm mad at me," she said quietly.

He bit his tongue as he looked at her. Truth be told, he was mad. He was angry and resentful and petulant, and he knew it was childish, but he couldn't help it. Ever since he'd boarded the Normandy, she'd promised to get him to Sur'Kesh to visit his father, and every time, something had happened to change their plans. Then when they finally did get there, it was too late. His father was missing, and as unfair as it might be, he did blame her.

She must have sensed what he was thinking. "There's nothing you can say that I haven't already said to myself. It's just that at the time, each action to meet and defeat the Reapers was more important than my own insignificant claim to happiness. And now I've paid for a little bit of galactic security with my love and your father. That's a damn steep price, and I'm not even sure it was worth it."

"It wasn't," he grated out, unable to hold back any longer.

"What would you have done in my place these last two weeks?"

"I'd have gone to Sur'Kesh as soon as the Reapers appeared," he told her bluntly.

"Mordin said the Normandy's Med Bay wasn't sufficient to manage Thane's treatment," she reminded him.

"Then we could have stayed in orbit until he was better. He was getting better! Mordin said so," he yelled.

"You'd have kept a frigate out of service this entire time?"

"Why not? There are other ships still hanging around Omega that haven't see battle yet."

"And what about me? Would you have kept such a key player out of the loop for so long? Away from all the diplomacy and tactics that need to happen?"

"You could get another ship," he scowled.

"No. Where the Normandy goes, I go. She's my ship and will be until this whole thing is over."

"Then you could have sent a different ship!"

There was a pause where she looked at him sadly. "Perhaps," she admitted. "Or I could have spent less time with the quarians. That's the second time they've delayed me on my way to Thane. I vowed the first time that I wouldn't let it happen again, and yet...I did. That's the part that hurts the most."

Kolyat caught the quaver in her voice and realized she was still near tears. Some of his anger drained away as he thought about how he would feel if he lost Hama. She was only a couple decks away. He could go back to her and seek solace in her arms. Shepard had no one now. He thought about Garrus' observations and how she was his last link to his father. "Tell me about one of your missions with him," he urged. "He would never tell me all that much. I think he was afraid of giving away your secrets. Or his own."

She accepted the conversation change gratefully and sat up straighter, although she still kept her knees tucked to her chest. "That man has secrets on top of secrets of his own," she agreed. "It took forever to get him to open up to me. He never really did until after we found you on the Citadel. I kind of hounded him for answers after that."

"I'm surprised he let you. He always gave me a 'look' that said I'd gone too far and he wouldn't say anything else. He did it when I was a kid, and he kept doing it after we met again."

To his surprise, she actually smiled. It was tiny, but it was there. "I think all parents do that. You should meet my mother. She's the XO on the Kilimanjaro, and I know exactly what look you're talking about. She still tries it on me."

"And does it work?"

Her smile widened. "A little, but don't tell her that. I have to remind myself that she's not in charge of me anymore."

"She wasn't an assassin, though."

"You've never enjoyed a thorough ass-chewing from a senior officer who also happens to be your mother. It's pretty intimidating, and then she throws the guilt in. Even my drill sergeant wasn't as scary as she was on occasion."

"Did you hate her for it?"

She pursed her lips and considered. "I thought I did for a long time. But I also admired her. I wanted to be like her, only better."

"So maybe she did her job. She made you into a better person. I know my mom wanted that for me. Guess it's a mom thing." Memories flashed quickly through his mind - his mother making a special dinner for just the two of them, accompanying her to the markets, visiting the ocean on a rare sunny day, helping him with his homework. The ache of missing her that never went away yawned deeply inside of him until he forced himself to focus on Shepard.

"Maybe." She paused, as if considering her next words. "Do you still hate your father?"

Now it was his turn to pause and consider his words. "No, not anymore. I still disagree with his actions, but I think maybe I understand them a little bit. I mean, it's hard to think about, but when he was my age, he had a baby. I can't imagine being in his place."

"What would you do for Hama?"

This time the answer was quick in coming. "Anything."

"Then you know your father better than you'll admit," she told him.

He actually reconsidered for a moment. Would he be willing to return to a dangerous and soul-numbing way of life just to provide for Hama? He refused to follow that line of thought any further. Maybe if...no, when they found his father, he would think about it more. For now, he had enough to worry about.

He reached into his pocket for his mother's necklace and thought about the relationship between his father and the woman sitting with him. He'd finally been honest with his father. Shepard deserved no less. "I should have told you sooner, Shepard, but I think that you have been good for him. And if it hadn't been for you...I don't know where I'd be right now. I know what you did with Bailey, and I owe you."

She went to wave it off, but he wouldn't let her.

"No, hear me out. I was angry when I left Kahje and was trying to prove something to myself. I thought I knew what I was doing, but now, looking back...I realize what I would have lost - Hama, my father...learning who I really want to be. You gave me the time and opportunity to find all that. Thank you, Shepard." It was hard for him to make that admission, but he felt immensely better once the words had been said.

She smiled warmly at him and finally unbent from the tight ball she'd been in since he walked in to reach out and touch him briefly on the knee. "I'm glad, Kolyat. I did it to help Thane, but now I'm just as proud of the man you've become as he is."

She had been clutching a small and well worn book against her chest, and Kolyat looked at it wonderingly. "Is that...?" He caught himself with an outstretched hand and quickly pulled it back.

She glanced down at the book she still held tightly in one hand. "It's Thane's prayer book. He left it with me when he went to live on the Citadel." She smiled wistfully. "He said that he didn't need to hold it to read the prayers in it, and he wanted me to keep it until he came back. It's his promise to me."

"It was my mother's," he said softly. Memories flowed freely of the small book held reverently in her hands or passed back and forth between his parents when his father was home. The book wasn't much bigger than her hand. The cover was a dusty blue, and the edges were well worn with the coloring rubbed off.

She looked surprised. "He told me it was his. He never said it was Irikah's." She looked down at it for a second, then thrust it out toward him. He almost missed the pained look in her eyes as she offered it to him. "You should have it. It belonged to both your parents."

He shook his head and pushed the book back toward her. "No, Shepard. It's yours." She started to object, but he spoke first. "Gifts are important to us. When my mom gave it to my father, she never expected it back. The same applies when he gave it to you."

His mom had told him the story more than once, each time revealing a little more of how they met, although she had never confided the entire truth to him before she died. He knew that she considered that book to be the catalyst of his father's change from 'ruthless businessman' to a caring husband and father. Kolyat had left Kahje convinced that she was deluded, but now that his past was finally revealed to him, he understood what she had meant and how difficult that change must have been. That tiny book represented their love for each other, and now his father had given it to Shepard. That, even though he had heard Thane call her siha, showed him how much his father loved this woman. He wondered if his mom would be mad, but he didn't think so.

She thought for a moment. "Then it's mine to give to you, isn't it?"

He smiled briefly and shook his head. "Theoretically, but I won't let you. You don't understand our culture well enough to know the meaning of the gift. You need to keep it." This time when he pushed it back toward her, she let him.

She opened it and leafed through it idly. "It's not like it does me much good. I can't read it, you know."

"You could always scan it with your omni tool."

She shrugged, still looking down at the alien words. "I could, but that feels like cheating. I want to see what he saw. I've tried to learn a few words, but I don't have a lot of time," she admitted.

"Why do you want to learn drellish?"

She found a page she was looking for. "My omni tool won't scan his handwriting. At least, I assumed it was his. Maybe it was your mother's." She held it out to him, and this time he accepted it.

"No, it's his," he said after a glance. He read it, then looked up at her. "Would you like me to tell you what it says?" The spark of joy that flashed in her face was almost painful in its intensity as she nodded.

"It's a prayer to Arashu.  _Through her, light is born. Through her, all is made anew. Through her, the old is washed away. Through her, I come to peace. Through her, I come to grace._  Next to it, he wrote,  _My light, my love, my siha_. It's old and faded. I'm guessing he wrote it about my mom."

Kolyat carefully turned through a few of the thin pages until he came to one with a handwritten note. "Here's another.  _Blessed be Arashu, who lit the sky on fire. By day, by season, the sun guides us. Heed its passage and mark your days, for the sun gives us life. But it is at night that the true beauty of her creation shines clear. She has lit the sky with ribbons of fire. She has dusted the heavens with eternal sparks. By day, a force to move and burn, but it is only at night that the light dims enough to reveal the subtle truth._ " He shifted the book and glanced at her. "This is what he wrote. I'm pretty sure it's about you. ' _Those who have walked through fire leave sparks of light wherever they go.'_ "

He looked up and was surprised to see her eyes shine with unshed tears. "He described me as fire sometimes. A fire to burn away the dark. A fire that would scare the weak. I always thought of him as my rock. No matter how much I raged or worried, he was always there and always calm. He was my center that I could return to. Now I feel lost and uncertain when I need him the most." She huffed out her breath, not really a laugh but something both hollow and self deprecating. "I'm sorry, Kolyat. You didn't come up here to hear me wallow in pity."

He shook his head, suddenly feeling very sorry for this woman who looked so sad and still. He had an inkling of what she was missing, and he knew that it was just that - an inkling. He hoped he never had to experience that sort of loss. "It's okay, Shepard. Tonight's a good night for talking." Garrus' words came back to him. "So, feel like telling me about some of your missions?" Oh crap, her eyes filled up with tears again. "If you don't want to..." he got out quickly, but she waved him silent.

"No, I don't mind. It makes me feel connected to him. And no one else is interested in hearing me talk about all those little moments. Anything in particular you want to know?"

"How about how you met?"

She smiled. It was an odd juxtaposition of happy memories and upturned lips against too-bright eyes and the trail of a tear still visible on her cheek, but she talked and he soon paid it no mind as he listened to the incredible story of how his father met this amazing siha. Even though Kolyat didn't want to openly call her that, he couldn't deny her status in his mind.

From there, they talked about all the various missions she'd undertaken in the past year, some without his father, but many with him. They talked for hours, reminiscing about far away and lost family and friends, past missions, and the other random topics that come when two people finally relax and just talk. Unlike his father, Shepard never censored any of her stories.

It was late when Kolyat finally decided he should head out.

"Feel free to come up and chat anytime, Kolyat, "she told him. "Maybe you can come up for Joker's and my video night. We watch terrible action vids and make fun of them."

He shuddered. "No thanks, but you would be Hama's best friend for life if you invited her. She loves those things."

"Done," she nodded decisively. She rose gracefully to her feet and Kolyat followed. As she walked him to the door, he noticed she still held the prayer book tightly.

"Good night, Shepard."

"Night, Kolyat. We'll find him, I promise."

"I believe you, Shepard." And it wasn't just because he wanted to. The certainty in her tone combined with what he knew of her lent the strength of conviction to her words. He could return to Hama, if not relaxed, at least not as distraught as he had been earlier today. His father had survived a suicide mission at Shepard's side - no small feat. What was a Reaper invasion compared to that? He smirked a bit as he turned to leave. Obviously, Shepard's optimism was rubbing off on him, but for now, he wouldn't fight it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I named this chapter, then out of curiosity, searched to see if it was a song, because it was niggling at my mind. It is! You can search YouTube for it and find various covers. It fits the mood of this chapter quite well.
> 
> There were a couple sections that I worked on for days and days, and I'm still not happy. I suspect I could work on them for many more days, so I'll just let them stand. Suffice to say that I'm discovering some of my limitations as a writer, or at least areas to work on.
> 
> Thanks to Orchidellia, my wonderful beta reader for her fantastic feedback and support.


	48. Betrayed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Reapers disrupt Shepard's plans in a major way.

The War Council meeting was as contentious as any of them, especially since the topic was granting the krogan a seat on the Council. Afterward, as Shepard entered the privacy of her cabin onboard the Normandy, she congratulated herself for not actually throttling the salarian Councilor in spite of what she considered to be just cause and a probable benefit to galactic society. The discussion had dragged on, and she had threatened, cajoled and bribed in equal amounts to a deeply divided Council to build a coalition of agreement. She and her allies had finally managed to sway the vote, but it had been a narrow thing. Still, it was something she could take pride in. Wrex would have another weapon in his arsenal to rebuild krogan society and integrate it into the larger galactic society.

She hadn't even managed to sit down before EDI spoke up. "Shepard, I received a message from the geth station at the Perseus Veil a short while ago. They said that a Reaper ship had entered their system and requested our assistance."

She frowned as she ran her hands through her hair, pulling it out of its neat bun. "There's not much assistance we can offer against even the smallest Reaper ships."

"The geth have asked us to pick up Retribution, in the event that the Reaper discovers the station."

She sighed and pushed the palms of her hands into her eyes as she considered the myriad of things she needed to do. "Alright. EDI, send a recall notice to all crew. I want everyone back in one hour, then we're headed out."

Even with so much to do, any risk to Retribution was too much. They had purposefully kept the location of the heretic station secret. She hadn't even told the Council where Retribution was. She knew most of them thought the research was being carried out on Rannoch, and she was content to let them continue thinking that.

Meanwhile, she reread her latest message from Miranda. "EDI, what do you think of this?"

"I concur with your suspicions, Shepard. While close, the tone and style do not completely match Operative Lawson's previous messages. It is highly likely that they are fakes meant to lull us into complacency."

"That's what I was afraid of. " She chewed on her bottom lip as she thought. "As soon as we pick up Retribution, we're headed back through the Omega 4 relay."

"Acknowledged, Shepard. Will there be anything else?"

"Not yet, EDI."

* * *

Shepard was standing behind Joker's chair as they entered the Perseus Veil system. She knew he hated it when she hovered, but she was too tense to wait in CIC.

"See anything?"

His hand flew over the controls rapidly. "Engaging stealth systems. There's a Reaper capital class ship cruising through the gas cloud."

Shepard swore angrily. "What's it doing here?"

He shrugged without looking at from the screens. "Who knows? But the bigger problem is getting to the station ourselves without being seen."

She tapped the back of his chair as she straightened up. "Take us in nice and slow, Joker. We've got to get Retribution out of there before the Reaper finds the station. Without him, our chances of winning this war are about as good as the proverbial snowball in hell."

"Leave it to me, Shepard."

They were four nerve wracking hours into the seven hour trip. Shepard was standing in front of the galaxy map watching anxiously as the Reaper ship cruised closer and closer to the heretic station.

The geth were silent, trying to avoid detection by the Reapers. Even EDI couldn't sense them even though she knew exactly where they were.

The Normandy crew was silent, too, as the tension on the ship kept growing. By itself, the Normandy was no match for the larger enemy ship. Their only hope lay in staying undetected. The geth station was even more vulnerable. This waiting was going to kill her, she thought. It was worse than any of the battles she'd been in. At least then, she could do  _something_. In battle, her fate was in her hands. Now, the fate of six million geth and one prothean weapon hung on the unknown sensitivity of the Reaper ship's sensors.

She gripped the railing so tightly that she thought she heard it creaking as the Reaper changed direction unexpectedly. Its new course took it perilously close to the station. "Joker?"

"I see it, Shepard. There's nothing we can do." He snapped the words off as he watched the same scene unfold in the cockpit.

She hoped against hope that the sinking feeling in her gut was wrong, and there was another perfectly reasonable explanation for why the Reaper was nearing the geth station.

"No!" Joker's anguished cry carried down the gangway to the CIC. He must have seen something, some subtle shift in direction from the Reaper, before any of them did. She felt herself break out into a cold sweat as the display showed the Reaper definitely closing in on the heretic station. The fact that she couldn't actually see the energy beams and weapon attacks didn't stop her from visualizing it.

Now she held onto the railing for an entirely different reason; she needed the support as her knees threatened to buckle underneath her. "No," she breathed out. All her hopes for defeating the Reapers had been pinned on Retribution, and now he was gone. How could they defeat the Reaper invasion now? In a war of conventional weapons, they were badly outclassed. The cold feeling settled like a ball of lead into her stomach.

The galaxy map updated, and with a single pulse, the heretic station was no more. Only the ominous shape of the Reaper remained, cruising away unchallenged.

Behind her, she heard Legion chirp in his machine language, but he didn't bother to translate for the organics on board so she paid him no mind. She wondered what he felt, if anything, at the destruction of so many of his brethren, but she wasn't up to asking him just yet. Then EDI spoke. "Shepard, just before the destruction of the base, I received a tight beam message from the geth. I believe Legion can help me translate it. Would you accompany him to the AI core?"

Unless the message happened to be the translated weapon code, she didn't see what the point of it was, but movement was always an anodyne for pain, so she simply nodded. "We'll be right down, EDI."

She moved heavily through the Med Bay. Six million geth suddenly snuffed out of existence. It didn't matter that they weren't organic. Through her association with EDI, then Legion, she'd come to realize that sentience wasn't limited to biological origins. She even had a synthetic daughter that she spoke with every day and loved as much as any member of her family.

It wasn't until she and Legion were crammed into the tiny AI core that the questions began to penetrate the morose fog in her brain. "Why couldn't we just discuss the message in CIC, EDI?"

"A moment, Shepard. We're waiting for one more."

She drummed her fingers across one of the electronics cabinets and started planning their next move. With Retribution gone, they would have to shift tactics, go more on the offensive than they had been. She would need to train more strike teams - they had been the most successful weapon thus far in their fight. Just as she was counting the number of known N7s left in the Alliance, the door slid open and Joker limped in.

Her brows furrowed in confusion at his appearance. "Joker, why are we meeting here? What's going on?"

"Apologies, Shepard-Admiral," Legion spoke. "The information contained in the message is very sensitive. Would not want to risk further subversion."

"You're not making sense, Legion," she started, but Joker interrupted her.

"We have a mole on the Normandy, Shepard."

A mole? Her mind jumped back and forth trying to understand what he meant. "Explain," she ordered tersely.

EDI took over. "The geth message stated that the Reaper knew exactly where the heretic station was."

"But I saw it searching..."

"That was only the final search. Shepard, the gas cloud is immense. The Reaper could have searched for years before finding the station. It knew where to go."

"How?" She was furious now, wanting a target for her sudden anger.

"Somehow, someone found a way to transmit the coordinates of the heretic station to the Reapers."

Shepard shook her head and stared at a server rack. "EDI, that just doesn't make sense. No one even knows how to contact the Reapers. Unless someone broadcast it on every open frequency, but even then...we'd have heard about it."

"I'm still calculating the possibilities of how, but Shepard, the Reaper knew where to go. Somehow, they learned of Retribution, and this was a move to destroy him before he could become active."

"A lot of people know about Retribution, EDI."

Joker answered bitterly. "Yeah, but the only people who know the location of the heretic station are right here on this ship."

They were back to the mole. Shepard could feel the blood drain from her face as she contemplated it. "We're on a Cerberus ship. Cerberus crew," she said slowly. "But why would Cerberus want our best chance at defeating the Reapers destroyed? It doesn't make sense. Joker, are you saying that one of our crew gave away the location of the heretic station? EDI, do you have any proof?"

"Negative, Shepard. If such a communication happened, it did so outside of the Normandy."

They'd been so many places...such a communication could have happened anywhere: the Citadel, Palaven, Omega. Her crew felt like family to her now, especially after they'd been through a suicide mission. Everyone with her now was a volunteer who'd stayed on even after the trauma of their kidnapping and rescue from the Collector Base. To think that one of them had betrayed her in such a manner hurt a way she hadn't even known was possible. She realized she'd come to think of her Cerberus crew in the same way she thought of her Alliance military - as family that she could rely on in life and death. Her stomach roiled in anger and betrayal, and most of that anger was directed at herself. How could she have ever trusted anything from Cerberus? Her gaze fell on EDI's blue hologram, and before she could stop herself, she spat out, "How can I even trust you, EDI? How do I know you don't have more shackles you haven't told us about? Maybe you don't even know about them yourself?"

Her hologram pulsed rapidly. "Shepard, I have been over every line of code multiple times. There are no more hidden subroutines resident in my programming."

She was about to say something else that she would probably regret, but Joker spoke up first. "There's something else to consider, Shepard." Her expression hardened, and he hurried to explain. "If the Reapers knew about Retribution and wanted him dead as soon as possible, why wait until now?" He saw the puzzlement in her face and continued. "If they had known earlier, they would have come earlier. The Normandy has been to the heretic station three times. Why didn't the Reapers come earlier?"

He waited while she worked it out. Their last trip to the Veil had only been a week ago. So what had changed between their previous two trips to the Veil and this last one? When she refocused her attention on Joker, he nodded. "New crewmembers."

"There are only four new members aboard the Normandy since our last visit," EDI added. "Specialist Traynor, Lieutenant Vega, Kolyat Krios, and Hama Strychae. Plus Kai Leng, although he was not aboard when we travelled to the heretic station. Of those, Kolyat and Hama were not allowed to leave the Normandy, nor did they communicate with anyone outside the Normandy."

She stared at Joker in anguish. If the thought of being betrayed by her Cerberus crew was painful, it was nothing compared to the idea that one of her Alliance crew might have been responsible. Her conversation with Vega the other day in the hangar deck came back to haunt her.  _'How do I know you're not a deep Cerberus plant, put here to cause the maximum amount of damage at the worst time?_ ' Had her words been prophetic?

"Shepard-Admiral, it is imperative that we find out who is responsible as quickly as possible," Legion told her. She bit back the ' _no shit, Sherlock_ ,' comment that first came to mind. "We have good news. The Reaper did not destroy Retribution."

* * *

It turned out the geth could give chess grandmasters a run for their money in terms of advance planning. They had run countless scenarios and come to the conclusion that Retribution was too important to be in such a defenseless target as the station. Since the geth don't need oxygen, and Retribution was a VI himself, they had built a tiny auxiliary habitat some distance away from the station. Its small size meant it went unnoticed by the Reaper.

She ordered Joker to hold until the Reaper cleared the relay. Meanwhile, she was back in her cabin trying to understand what was going on with her crew. EDI had shut down all communications outside the ship. She could receive, but nothing was being transmitted. She went back over the jackets for both Traynor and Vega, but was unable to find anything obviously suspicious in either one.

Her thoughts kept circling around in her head. She couldn't get rid of the idea that Cerberus was involved, but she couldn't work out how or why. Why would the Illusive Man work against the rest of the galaxy and sabotage their best chance of defeating the Reapers? Was this related to his mysterious silence or Miranda's disappearance? She was more than half convinced that the Collector Base had fallen to Cerberus forces. It would account for the faked messages from Miranda. Obviously, the Illusive Man had his own plans for the base. Maybe she should have destroyed the damned place when she had the chance.

She came to the unhappy conclusion that even though she didn't have the answers, she would have to take some drastic measures. She sent a message to Traynor and Vega to meet her in the conference room.

They both stood to attention as she entered the room. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly as she stopped near the doors, dreading what she was about to say. "I'll make this brief," she told them. "I have reason to believe that one of you is working with Cerberus and sent sensitive information to them that resulted in the destruction of the heretic geth station."

She watched them both carefully as she spoke. They looked shocked and spoke over each other to deny it. She didn't expect anything different.

She let them speak for a few minutes, getting the indignation and denials out of the way before she held up her hand. As they fell silent, she spoke. "I don't have to explain my reasoning to you, and I won't until I have more to go on. Until then, you are both confined to the Normandy with communication privileges revoked. Specialist Traynor, you are relieved of duty until further notice."

Traynor gaped unbelievingly at Shepard. "But Admiral, you need someone to help handle your communications."

Shepard nodded. "Yes, you're right. I've assigned Hama Strychae those duties for the time being."

"But, but...she's..." Traynor spluttered.

"She's what?" Shepard crossed her arms over her chest and stared coldly at Traynor, waiting to see what she'd say.

"She's not trained," the other woman finished lamely.

"On the job training, Traynor." She chewed on the inside of her lip, wondering if Traynor had been going to object on the basis of Hama being a drell. It was true that Hama would need a lot of training, but she was also certain she wouldn't have to worry about Hama sending sensitive information on to Cerberus.

"Admiral?" Vega asked. When she nodded for him to continue, he said, "Isn't there some way to prove our innocence?" He looked frustrated as hell, and she didn't blame him. In his shoes, she'd have been furious.

She shrugged. "If you have something you wish to bring to my attention, we can discuss it. I'm sorry, both of you. If this turns out to be a mistake, I promise you'll have my formal apology. That will be all." She turned and headed out, feeling horrible, but not seeing any other options open to her right now.

She was in the hangar bay as they brought Retribution on board. "You've changed from the last time I saw you," she told him. He was now housed in a custom geth Prime body. Instead of a single optical sensor, he had a head that resembled that of the long-dead protheans with four optical sensors, but otherwise, he looked like the other Primes she'd seen.

"I needed the extra storage space available in the Prime housing unit to store all of my code," he informed her.

"How close are you to cracking the Reaper's language?" she asked him urgently.

"I believe we might actually have a working copy. The geth had listening outposts near most of the major mass relays, and they have been listening in on the Reapers' communication and sending them back to the heretic station for processing. Unfortunately, we won't know for certain unless we can test it somehow."

She winced in frustration. Every bit of good news had bad news attached to it. However, she reminded herself that only a few hours earlier, she thought they had lost Retribution completely, so she was determined to stay optimistic. "Do you have any suggestions on how we can set up a test?"

He shook his head. "Not yet, Admiral Shepard. If we attempt it on one Reaper and fail, the others will be forewarned. We must attack the entire Reaper fleet at the same time. The geth fleet at Rannoch lacks the processing power of the heretic station, but they have devoted a significant portion of their resources to working on this problem.

"Alright. Keep at it. You're obviously our highest priority, so let me know if you need anything at all."

"Acknowledged, Admiral Shepard."

She left him in the hangar bay and headed back to her cabin. She planned to spend a good portion of the evening teaching Hama what she needed to do for her new job. To the young drell's credit, she didn't complain and her eidetic memory made the training fairly short. "Admiral," Hama said after a couple hours, "this message was shunted into an inactive folder, but I think it's from one of your old crewmembers."

Shepard leaned over to look at the display. "It's Miranda!" She jammed her finger on the keyboard to open it up. The message was terse. " _Shepard, we have to meet. I have urgent news. You're in jeopardy. -M. Lawson._ "

"How did it end up there?" she asked Hama, who could only shrug.

"Maybe because it didn't have a verified originating address. No way of knowing where it's from, or if it's actually from Ms. Lawson."

Shepard reached over Hama to type out a reply. "Let's hope this is actually Miranda. If so, I'm sure she knows what she's doing."

She went over a few more things with Hama before releasing her for the rest of the evening. She was too realistic to actually be happy, but she did feel more optimistic than she had in days. Her gaze swept across the empty cabin, and her mood promptly fell again. Still no word from Thane or anyone from Sur'Kesh. Miranda's message had changed her plans yet again, and the Normandy was headed to Omega instead of the Collector's Base, but after that, she wanted to head back to the salarian homeworld and look again for Thane. She refused to give up hope. She needed to hope for something just for herself, no matter how selfish. Otherwise, she was afraid the relentless, desperate pressure of fighting a losing war would grind her down until nothing was left but a grim and hollow shell of a woman. She would prefer to save that sacrifice for last. And so when she climbed into her cold and lonely bed, she allowed herself the luxury of prayer and remembrance to stave off the emptiness just a while longer.

* * *

_Fight!_

It felt like he had been fighting his entire life. He was tired of fighting. What had it gotten him besides a dreadful burden of soul crushing pain and guilt? Why should this command be any different?

_Promise!_

He had made several promises in his life. His honor demanded that he keep them, but some had been beyond his ability to keep. There was a feeling of betrayal, loss, and agony associated with some of those broken promises. He had let someone down. Someone important. He flinched away from following that thought any further. No more promises. He wanted to rest.

_You belong to me!_

Arashu had claimed his soul. That wasn't right. He was a killer, and his soul belonged to Kalahira. It was his time to go to the sea. If she were merciful, he might see his beloved siha again.

Which one?

That thought was so unexpected that it pushed him further into the realm of consciousness.

Siha. The scent of summer spice. Sunset eyes staring back at him through a sniper scope.  _How dare you?_ Gone. Lost to the evil in the galaxy that he had tried to eradicate. Gone, and he was lost without her.

Siha. Gun fire and explosions and righteous anger against those who dared threaten the ones she protected. Fire captured in her hair and the warmth of her strange smooth skin.

The ocean was right there. He could sense it rolling and surging just in front of him. It would be so easy to let go and step into the waves.

_Fight! Come back to me, Thane!_

Back. Not forward. He had made a promise. One of many in his life. But this one he had given to a siha, that he would fight for survival. Some promises are more easily broken than others. This was not such a one. This promise sank deep into his soul and anchored him to the world of the living. He felt the ocean recede, and an inferno of fire rushed to take its place.

The pain was agonizing! His body was being torn to shreds. Every muscle cramped and burned. His lungs were screaming as red hot shards lanced through his chest with every breath. Frantically he searched for the tempting coolness of the ocean, but it was gone as if it had never existed.

No promise could hold him through this!

_You're mine, Thane Krios. I claim you body and soul._

Arashu had claimed him through her siha. She wouldn't let him go. Even through the agonizing fires that threatened to burn him to ash, he could feel his promise to her expanding from the tiniest mote of memory to encompass his entire being. He would burn in flame, but he would not leave her. He would not fail a second siha. She claimed him. She needed him. And so he would turn away from the ocean and face the flames. He would go to her side, and nothing would stop him.

He forced his eyes to open.

He was alive!

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Orchidellia, my wonderful beta reader who gives me awesome feedback and suggestions.


	49. Sometimes We Get It Wrong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard and crew undertake a high stakes mission on Horizon.

Shepard wouldn't say she was dawdling on Omega. There was always more than enough to keep busy. The ships in the combined fleet that were not out on duty were here, either for R&R for their crews or practicing maneuvers, although by this point, the surviving ships had become fairly adroit at working together and avoiding the worst of the Reaper attacks. Surprisingly, the majority of the ships outside Omega were rachni, although most of them were small fighters. Admiral Valerianus preferred to keep his ships here rather than at the Citadel. There was much more space here, and he had more freedom to plan his operations.

No, between meeting with the military forces, coordinating with Liara, and trying to figure out what to do with Traynor and Vega and Kolyat and Hama, she had more than enough on her mind. She preferred it that way. She wanted to be too busy to worry about her personal life.

She had just been catching up with Endo and Savickas. They were both leading successful strike teams and were currently in a competition for who had killed the most Reapers. Rina was in the lead with her team claiming an even twenty. Endo had cried foul, claiming she had an unfair head start, but he was headed to Palaven next, and there were more Reapers on the ground there than any other homeworld.

Palaven was taking a major beating. Since every single turian had military experience, every city on Palaven was fighting back hard against the Reapers. In turn, the Reapers had been landing more and more ships on Palaven every week. It was a grim situation, much worse than Earth.

Finally her companions had left her to head back to their work, leaving her alone and with nothing to do for the first time in nearly five days. She absently drew patterns in the condensation rings on the table, letting her mind wander.

Inevitably her thoughts went straight to Thane, as they did almost any time something else wasn't occupying her attention. It was like a missing tooth that you couldn't stop poking at with your tongue. Like all the other homeworlds, the Reapers had taken out the comm buoys first. Now any communication from Sur'Kesh came only through couriers and drones, and then only if they survived running the Reaper gauntlet in orbit. She kept sending messages back to Thane on the return ships, but she had no idea if any of them were actually making it through to the local net.

Before she had a chance to get too wound up in her worries, someone pulled out the chair and sat next to her. She looked over and blinked twice in surprise. "Miranda!"

"Hello, Shepard," came the tired but genuinely happy response.

"I was betting you'd find me if I stayed put in one place long enough, which is harder that it sounds like right now."

The brunette nodded as she relaxed cat-like in the hard chair. "I was expecting to catch up with you on the Citadel. Took me a couple of days to catch a ship to Omega."

Shepard smiled. "I've missed you. More than you can imagine," she told her.

"Believe me, I would have much rather been with you than where I was," Miranda said emphatically.

"Which was?" Shepard prodded.

"Cerberus' main headquarters, courtesy of the Illusive Man." She grimaced, and it took Shepard a moment to realize the unusual expression on Miranda's face was embarrassment. "I underestimated him, Shepard."

"What happened, Miranda?"

"We were making good progress on the Collector's Base, and the contingent of geth and quarians were actually cooperating. You know that Cerberus sent their own team as soon as you gave them a copy of the IFF. They must have copied it, because right after Tali and Legion left, Cerberus landed with troops. Lots of them. There was nothing I could do. They killed our research team, down to the last person. I've spent the time ever since in custody at Cerberus' headquarters. I only managed to escape a couple weeks ago." There was a weariness in her eyes that told more than the bare bones of the words she spoke.

Shepard thought furiously as she took it all in. "I suspected something was wrong, Miranda. I'm sorry I didn't follow up on it as soon as possible."

"There was nothing you could have done, Shepard. They took me away immediately, but I know the Illusive Man kept sending troops. If you had gone back to the Collector Base, it would be like our last battle there all over again, except we'd be facing Cerberus troops instead of Collectors."

"I've fought Cerberus before," Shepard started but Miranda cut her off.

"Not like this, Shepard. The Illusive Man has been experimenting with Reaper tech on humans, looking for a way to augment them. Like the Collectors, but without the genetic modifications. I saw things while I was being held at Cerberus headquarters." She shuddered, and Shepard wondered what the unflappable agent could possibly have seen that disturbed her so much. She took a deep breath, like she was steeling herself for what to say next. "I need your help, Shepard."

"What for?"

"Oriana is missing. It took me a while, but I finally hacked Cerberus' database and found out that the Illusive Man sent her to my father on Horizon. Shepard, you have no idea what my father is capable of. He could be doing anything to Oriana. I need to rescue her, and I need your help. Please, Shepard. I can't do it on my own."

She could see the naked desperation in Miranda's eyes as the proud woman begged for her help. It was the same look she'd seen what Miranda had first broken down and asked her to help save her sister from her father's grasp back on Illium. This time, however, Shepard didn't have the luxury of time. She had to balance Miranda's personal request against the fate of a galactic war.

"Miranda, you're asking me to divert resources just to rescue one person?"

Before she could go on, Miranda interrupted. "It's not just Oriana, Shepard. I know my father. He's brilliant. If he's working with the Illusive Man, it's to further Cerberus' goals."

"Cerberus' goal is to save humanity, Miranda. At least, that's what you and the Illusive Man kept telling me all last year. Has that changed?" Her words were sharp and bitter, reminding the operative of all their arguments about Cerberus' goals and methods.

Miranda looked down at the plastic table, unwilling to meet her gaze. "I'm...not sure, Shepard. He's changed. He's always been egotistical, but when I talked to him...there was something not normal."

Shepard snorted in agreement. "The man's ego has always been supernova sized. It's just too bad that he actually had the ability to back it up. So what are you trying to tell me, Miranda? That your father is building an army of super soldiers to fight the Reapers? Because to be honest, we could use something like that. It's not looking good for us."

Miranda looked affronted, as Shepard knew she would at any suggestion that didn't have her immediately agreeing to help rescue Oriana. "Shepard, he's actively fighting against the Alliance. I don't know exactly what he's planning, but he thinks that he doesn't need the rest of the galaxy. Whatever he's up to, he's not planning on helping us. He's building an army to further his goals, not to help the combined forces beat the Reapers."

Shepard thought back to her trip to London. "Why would he order an attack on Alliance HQ to grab military hardware that's supposed to be impossible to crack?"

The look on her face said she wouldn't like the answer. "He salvaged the proto-Reaper you fought on the Collector's Base, Shepard. If he can get it working and decipher it, he'll have an unbelievably powerful computer, faster and smarter than anything else in the galaxy. It's an important part of his plans, whatever they are."

"Mother fucker!" Shepard pounded her fist on the table, ignoring the startled looks from patrons at her outburst. "That's how he did it!" She was galled at how completely she had been duped by the Illusive Man. "The Reapers took out the heretic geth station, and I couldn't figure out how they knew. He told them. Goddamnit!" Foolishly, she had thought he would make saving humanity his highest priority. Instead, it seemed he had a more grandiose goal in mind - one that would see him in charge of the galaxy with humanity as his personal plaything.

"Told them?" Miranda asked in puzzlement.

"We theorized that the only way the Reapers could have known the location of the heretic station is if someone from the Normandy sent it to them, but we couldn't figure out how. But if the Illusive Man has figured out how to communicate with the human Reaper, he could have told them where the station was. Goddamn mother fucking..." She grabbed her beer bottle and threw it across the room as hard as she could, causing an outcry among the customers. The bartender started toward her, then changed his mind when he saw the murderous look on her face. Still, she forced herself to take a deep breath and calm down.

Miranda ignored her outburst. "It's possible. I know Cerberus, along with my father, has been putting tremendous effort into understanding Reaper technology. It's possible they, and the Illusive Man, have figured out how to communicate with the Reapers."

Shepard's fists were clenched so tightly that the skin over her knuckles was pure white, and when she spoke, it was with a snarl on her lips. "Now I just have to figure out which rat bastard leaked the coordinates to Cerberus."

"What?"

Shepard quickly outlined her suspicions about Traynor and Vega. Miranda leaned back in her chair as she thought out loud. "I seriously doubt it would be Lieutenant Vega. The Illusive Man always considered the military special forces not worth the effort of subverting, not when he could make more gains for less effort elsewhere. You are the highest ranking Alliance officer to ever work for Cerberus."

"That you know of," she couldn't resist pointing out.

Miranda gave her a quelling look. "I know quite a bit, Shepard. I can't say conclusively, but I would say there's a good chance that Traynor is your leak. The Illusive Man was quite incensed that the original Normandy crew that returned to you after the Collector Base seemed to all be more loyal to you than to him. He was looking for another way to control your actions."

Shepard was still furious as she nodded to the brunette. "You've got your rescue mission, Miranda. I need to get to your father and find out just how much Cerberus knows about Reaper technology. We lift as soon as I get Traynor off my ship."

Predictably, Samantha Traynor did not take well to being turned over to Omega security. It was a measure of how much Omega was changing under the influence of the combined fleets that Aria had actually allowed the creation of a security force that wasn't under her dictatorial control. It wasn't perfect, but it was modeled on C-sec and run by the local fleet authority.

Ironically, Omega was now one of the safer places in the galaxy to live and work. Zaeed and the Blue Suns were providing additional security in the lower reaches of Omega, past where O-sec could yet secure. There were still plenty of places where you took your chances on Omega, but the merc activity had dropped considerably, and every week, more and more merchants and refugees were flocking to Omega. There were rumors that Aria was considering instituting a tax on merchants and actually turning Omega into a legitimate city. Shepard scoffed at the rumors. She'd believe that when she saw it.

Back on the Normandy, she found Vega practicing his pull ups. "I take it the doc cleared you?"

He dropped to the deck breathing heavily and grinned at her. "Ready for duty, Admiral. And thanks for believing me."

"Don't thank me. Thank Miranda Lawson, one of Cerberus' finest."

He scowled, not having heard that part yet. "Another Cerberus operative, Admiral?"

Still in a foul temper from earlier, she was in no mood to deal with Vega's attitude. "Yes," she answered sharply. "The one who literally brought me back from the dead, kept the Normandy running smoothly for a year, and has a sister she loves more than life and that we're going to rescue from her self-aggrandizing father who's unravelling Reaper tech for the Illusive Man. Good enough qualifications for you, Lieutenant?" she asked with heavy sarcasm.

Vega was smart enough to know better than to answer anything other than, "Yes, ma'am!" so she let it slide.

"Good, because you're going with me and Miranda when we hit Horizon. You might want to get to know your fellow squaddie before we hit dirt."

This time, his "Yes, ma'am," was tinged with resignation as he trudged toward the lift.

She watched him go and eyed the pull up bar speculatively. It had been a long time since she'd done any, and she hated the thought of getting shown up. Besides, it would be a good stress reliever. Jumping up, she started counting. "One. Two. Three..."

* * *

As the Normandy's shuttle dropped out of orbit on Horizon, Shepard listened to the automated message that proclaimed Horizon was a safe place for refugees from the Reaper war. "Well, he certainly makes a good case," Shepard said as she turned to enter the shuttle with Miranda and James.

"My father always did know how to make a compelling speech," Miranda said. "But I'm through listening to him. He's selling nothing but lies. I only hope we're in time to save Oriana." She turned her heavy pistol over and over in her hands as she settled onto a shuttle seat.

"Just another smooth talking salesman, looking to make a buck off someone else's fear," James added scornfully. "We can handle his kind."

"Just remember, there are going to be lots of confused and scared civilians down there. We don't know what we're walking into," Shepard warned them. "This has a lot of potential for things to go sideways." She gave James a careful glance. He had been through some tough decisions in the past, and he still wasn't comfortable with the fallout from them. She knew his call about saving Dr. Treeya at the expense of the colonists on Fehl Prime still haunted him.

He firmed his lips and gave her a sharp nod, telling her he would be focused on the mission today.

She took a deep breath as the shuttle doors opened and they jumped out. Just like the last time she'd been on Horizon, there were no settlers to greet them as they set foot on the colony. "How long did you say Cerberus has been proclaiming Horizon a refugee facility, Miranda?"

"Several weeks, Shepard. Maybe longer. I wasn't looking for specifics on Horizon when I hacked their database looking for Oriana."

They headed into the main bunker. Announcements for new arrivals boomed out into the empty spaces that were divided into various seating areas. Miranda headed toward the main reception area and flicked through the information screens. "According to this, over seventy ships have landed here. There are thousands of names on the intake forms."

The hairs on the back of Shepard's neck were standing up. James looked similarly uneasy. "Then where is everyone?" The empty spaces provided no answers.

They headed through the first door they could find that said 'No Admittance' and found themselves in a sparse utility hallway. Making their way toward the back of the complex, the hallway soon dumped them out into an open bay with several strange machines pushed up against the walls.

Shepard took one step out and stopped with her squad behind her. "Something's wrong. We're where we shouldn't be, and we haven't seen one person so far."

"I feel you, Lola. Something's screwy here." James tightened his grip on his SMG and glared at the far door as if waiting for it to burst open.

In a fine example of the universe's twisted attempt at humor, the door did exactly that. Troops in black and yellow poured through. They didn't even extend the courtesy of ordering Shepard and her team to surrender; they simply started firing.

Shepard was worried for a second that she would have problems with her team. Miranda had been locked up in prison for months, and this was her first time with James in the field. Turned out her worries were unfounded. Miranda had lost none of her edge, and James was steady as a rock behind her. It was a tough fight, but in the end her team prevailed.

While James covered them in case of any further attacks, Miranda knelt by one of the downed troopers. "Something's not right," she frowned as she looked at the body with the helmet partially knocked off.

"Nothing has been right with this place since we landed," Shepard muttered as she split her attention between the door and the trooper. When Miranda completely removed his helmet, she gasped and knelt beside Miranda. "What the hell?" she breathed in shock.

Behind her, she heard James curse softly as he took in the trooper's appearance. He was human, but the skin on his face was heavily covered in cybernetic lines that grossly disfigured his features. Miranda opened one eye to reveal they had been replaced with cybernetics as well.

Shepard turned to yank the helmet off a second Cerberus trooper, revealing the same cybernetic lines on his face and down his neck. She pulled off his glove and saw that the enhancements extended at least down that far. She sat back on her heels and looked up at Miranda. "What is this?"

"I knew that the Illusive Man was extremely interested in Reaper technology and thought it had tremendous untapped potential. My guess is that among all the tech that he found on the Collector's Base, my father found something that he could use to enhance Cerberus' troops."

Shepard felt a shudder of revulsion go through her entire body as she thought again of her own forced resurrection and reconstruction at the hands of Cerberus. "Enhance? So like me?"

Miranda frowned as she bent down to get a closer look. "No, not like you. We used conventional, albeit state of the art cybernetics when we rebuilt you. These look much more like the technology found in husks. I didn't have access to any Reaper technology when I worked on you."

Shepard didn't find Miranda's turn of phrase very reassuring and briefly wondered if the operative would have used it had it been available. She decided for her own peace of mind that she wouldn't ask. "What else has your father been working on?" she asked.

Miranda stood and brushed her hands off. "That's what I intend to find out."

Shepard grimaced and took point again as they continued moving forward. They crept through the habitat modules more carefully now, watching and expecting more resistance. Every time they went through a door and found another empty room, Shepard's nerves stretched a little tighter. "This is too easy," she muttered.

"Admiral, over here," James called out softly. He was standing in front of an observation window, and his hands were clenched tightly around his weapon.

She peered around his broad shoulders and saw what had disturbed him. Hundreds of people were standing in the room. They all looked like refugees. Her shoulder blades drew together in recognition of something very wrong. The people in there were standing almost completely still, and every one of them showed signs of extensive cyberization. They weren't talking or doing much of anything, but she could see little movements here and there that suggested they were still alive. "Miranda?"

The brunette sounded shaken as she answered. "I don't know, Shepard. It looks the same as the troops, but I don't know what the purpose is."

James tapped lightly at the window. It was enough to catch the attention of the nearest person, a young woman in her early twenties. Her head swiveled to look at the observation window for a moment, then without a single warning, she threw herself at the window and started hammering at it with her fists. Behind her, the others reacted similarly and headed for the window. It spread out from her in a wave until the entire room was pressed up against the window with everyone in there trying their best to attack through the thick plas-glas between them. Eventually so many were pressed up against the window that the ones in front were being crushed into immobility. Through it all, the young woman's expression never changed from impassivity. "What the fuck, man!" James fell back with his weapon up and pointed at the window out of reflex.

"They appear to be connected together, somehow, through their cybernetics. What one knows, they all know," Miranda speculated. "They're acting like a hive mind."

"That ain't right,  _chica_ ," James said in disgust.

"No, it's not, James," Shepard agreed. "Come on. Let's go find Henry Lawson and Oriana."

They headed on. As Shepard looked back one last time, she saw the woman being crushed to death by the press of people behind her. Even as one of their own was dying, it didn't stop the rest of them. Somehow, it was even worse than the husks she'd faced. At least they had been dead before being altered. She didn't know what Cerberus was up to, but this was worse than anything she'd seen in her hunt for Saren.

"This is it, Shepard. The main lab is just ahead." Miranda gestured, and as she did so, the door slid open invitingly.

Shepard stepped through with her weapon at the ready. She saw an older human male holding Oriana tightly in front of him with a gun to her side. "Henry Lawson, I presume?" she asked sarcastically. Shepard noticed that he had his own cybernetic additions in the form of a custom visor that looked grafted onto his skin

"Miranda, dear, so glad you could join us. Oh stop being a bother and put that thing down," he said as the former Cerberus agent stepped forward with her pistol trained on his head. "You really ought to know better."

"You're the one who should know better. What made you think you could take Oriana for more of your experiments?" she said tightly. Shepard could see her anger simmering just below the surface.

"Since you so inconveniently made yourself unavailable, I had to go with my fallback plan," he told her. Oriana squirmed against him, and he tightened his arm around her shoulders and shoved the pistol harder into her ribs. "Quiet down," he ordered her.

"You won't kill her," Miranda said. "You value her too much. Not as a daughter, unfortunately."

"She won't die right away. The lab is right here. Once I dispose of you, there will be plenty of time to do what I need to. Of course, I'd prefer it if I didn't have to rush my work. Or you could offer to take her place," he added with a sinister smile.

Shepard nodded to James and jerked her head to the side, telling him to start flanking Dr. Lawson. She started moving slowly to the opposite side.

"What are you doing here? What did you do to those refugees?" Miranda asked.

"Hold still," Lawson snapped at Shepard and James. "Take one more step and I shoot Oriana. Shoot me and she dies."

Shepard gave a short sharp nod to James to tell him to hold in place, but they kept their weapons trained on the doctor. "Stand down, Lawson. Let Oriana go, and we'll let you live. That's the best outcome you can hope for," she told him.

He laughed. "Hardly. You think too small, Shepard. I must admit, even I didn't realize the full scope of the Illusive Man's goals at first. Once I did, though...it was astounding. Limitless power. You can't even conceive of his genius."

That drew a scornful snort from her. "I think evil and twisted pretty well covers it. Sounds like you've swallowed his propaganda hook, line and sinker."

He gave her a smug smile that she was quickly learning to hate. "Not propaganda. Truth. He plans to rule the galaxy, and I'm convinced he can do it."

"Really?" Shepard shot back. "What about the Reapers? Is he just gonna ask them nicely to go away?"

"Better than that," Lawson answered. "They'll do as he commands."

Shepard exchanged a skeptical look with Miranda before turning back to the doctor. "Yeah, right. Pull the other one."

"I don't have to. I only had to keep you talking long enough for my thralls to arrive," he gloated.

Shepard frowned in confusion for only as long as it took to hear the door slide open behind them. Whirling in place, she stared in shock at the mass of cyberized humans who tromped through the doorway. It was the same mass of humans they'd passed in the room earlier. A few of them still had bloodied fists from pounding on the window.

In a flash, everything was clear. Lawson was controlling the enthralled humans through his cybernetic implant, acting as the controller while their cybernetics eliminated their own individuality. As long as Lawson controlled them, they were mindless zombies and he would spend their lives without care to ensure his own survival. She turned back to Lawson to see him dragging Oriana back through a door, no doubt intending to seal them in with his thralls.

"You can't have her!" Miranda yelled as she tried to line up a shot. Shepard grimaced as the mob pushed through the door, cutting off any chance of her reaching it and sealing it against them. She didn't want to shoot them; they were still living humans, and even if they were mindless automatons at the moment, they could be restored if she could get away and bring back the proper resources. She clocked a large man on the jaw hard enough to knock him out, but instead of dropping to the ground, he swiveled his head back around and swung at her. She danced back out of his reach, but at the rate they were pushing into the room, they would quickly be overrun.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a violent movement. As she glanced backward, she saw Oriana drive her elbow into Lawson's soft gut, doubling him over. Using the same elbow, she slammed it up into his jaw, knocking him backward onto the floor.

A single gunshot exploded in the space, and Oriana gasped in horror at her sister. "You killed him!"

"Something I should have done a long time ago," Miranda said as she pushed her sister through the door into a dimly lit service hallway.

James was next. Shepard came through immediately after him and palmed the door shut just as the mindless mob reached it. The door immediately flickered back to green and slid open. "Go, go!" she yelled at the others. James took point and jogged quickly down the hallway. He cursed loudly then yelled for them to hurry up. "More incoming!" he said as he directed Miranda and Oriana down a different branch.

"We've got to get back to the shuttle!" Shepard glowered at the mob that had started running toward them when they spotted her team.

"That may be a problem, Shepard," Miranda yelled as she guided Oriana down a different hallway. "It appears that my father ordered every human on Horizon to attack us."

As she ran past the hallway, she saw a different group of refugees heading for them. "How are they finding us, Miranda?"

"Hive mind. Acting on the last given order." Miranda's answers were short and clipped. They were running full out now, trying to outpace the mob chasing them.

Shepard didn't like the conclusion she was drawing. "That means..."

"Aww, fuck!" James yelled as he opened the door to the outside and immediately drew back to kick a woman in the gut, sending her flying back into the crowd behind her. She fell to the ground, ignored as the rest of the mob charged forward. Glancing around him, she could see that the courtyard was filled with refugees, all of them oriented on the doorway James was trying to close and lock.

She could hear civilian footsteps rapidly approaching in the corridor behind them and cursed. There was no good way out, but to stay here would be suicide. "James, forward!" she ordered. He shot her a shocked look, knowing as well as she did that they would have to kill several of the refugees to make it through. Then his expression blanked, and he palmed the door open again.

To his credit, he aimed for their legs in an attempt to cripple without killing them. Miranda wasn't as generous. As soon as James had cleared a space, she stepped through and dropped a half dozen with chest shots.

"Fucking hell, Miranda," he yelled as he shot another in the foot. "You don't have to kill them!"

"It's us or them, Vega," she yelled back as she shot a teenage boy in the head.

Shepard tossed a flash bang grenade down the hallway to slow the mob advancing on their rear, then tossed a second one ahead of them to scatter the mob. "Enough," she ordered curtly as she shouldered past James to take the lead.

The mob was temporarily dazed and disorganized, and she took advantage of it to brutally shove her way through them to another habitat module. Behind them, the mob was rapidly recovering, and she heard both Miranda's and James' weapons fire. As she opened the door, a man was waiting to jump her. Out of reflex, she shot him point blank in the chest and watched dispassionately as he fell to the floor. She knew she would pay for this later with more nightmares.

"They're acting as a group mind, Shepard. What one sees, they all see," Miranda said as she gestured toward the back of the habitat, which opened to other modules. "They know we're here, and it won't take the rest of them long to get to us."

Shepard felt the first stirrings of panic inside her. Even if she ordered her team to kill everyone in their way, there were hundreds of refugees between them and the shuttle. They faced the very real chance of being overrun by sheer numbers. They would have to use grenades and explosions to even have a chance at getting through, and those were messy and miserable kills.

"Orders, Admiral?" James asked as an elderly woman started pounding her head on the porthole in the habitat door.

She fingered the grenades at her belt. She was out of non-lethal options, and even though her stomach churned at the thought, she didn't see any other way. Just as she drew a breath to order them to move out, EDI chirped out on her comm. "Shepard, we may have an option for you."

"Talk to me, EDI," she ordered, terse and nervous.

"Retribution has been listening to the signal traffic on Horizon. The networked humans are communicating with a simplistic version of the Reaper machine language. He thinks he can broadcast the weaponized virus and disrupt the group mind. If it works, it should prove the efficacy of the weapon while giving you time to get to the shuttle."

She grasped for the lifeline EDI offered like a woman drowning. "Do it, EDI."

"Shepard, there's a not insignificant chance it might prove dangerous for the refugees."

"EDI, my alternative is to blow hundreds of people up into bloody bits. Broadcast the fucking weapon!"

EDI's affirmative was lost in the sound of running footsteps echoing in the metal hallways as more mind-controlled refugees came for them. "Try for non-lethal shots!" Shepard ordered the others as the first wave burst into the room. She aimed for their feet and legs, trying to make them fall and hopefully block the entrance and buy more time for Retribution and EDI to broadcast the weapon signal.

For the rest of her life, she would remember the next few moments with perfect clarity. High velocity rounds penetrated unarmored flesh, tearing chunks away, shattering bones. The refugees, no longer fully human and obeying the commands of a dead man, continued to claw their way toward her and her team even as some were bleeding to death or being trampled by those coming behind them. Behind her, she heard Oriana sobbing. It struck her then that for a firefight, it was exceedingly quiet. None of the refugees made a single sound aside from the thud of bodies hitting the floor. Some part of her was horrified at her actions, even as she knew it was necessary if she wanted to live.

Just as she didn't think she could take any more, EDI communicated, "Signal incoming, Shepard."

Nothing happened for a few seconds, and Shepard and her team continued to fire. Then the refugees slowed down and lost focus. They stood staring vacantly into space as she and her squad waited tensely. Then, as suddenly as puppets who'd had their strings cut, every single one of them collapsed.

The sudden cessation of movement was as jarring as the lack of noise. Miranda cautiously advanced on the nearest refugee and knelt to check their pulse. She shook her head and checked another one. Also negative.

Shepard opened the door and jumped back as bodies tumbled through it. They had been pressed up so tightly against the door that most were still standing even though they were now lifeless.

Gingerly at first, she pushed the bodies backward, but they were packed so tightly that she couldn't budge them until she put her shoulder into it and shoved as hard as she could. Even then, she had to step on bodies that were still warm and pliable to make her way to the ground. Behind her, she heard Miranda offer soothing words to a sobbing Oriana and briefly wished someone had something comforting to say to her.

She had been so sure the weapon would work and leave the civilians alive. Confused, maybe. Scared. Unconscious even. But alive. Instead, she looked out over a field filled with corpses and realized that instead of killing hundreds, she had just ordered the death of thousands. EDI had warned her, but she hadn't listened. She had gambled and lost, and every refugee on Horizon had paid the price.

She locked down her emotions as she led them through the settlement. At the least, it appeared they had their weapon. If it worked here, she prayed it would work against the Reapers, and these deaths wouldn't be in vain. History would judge, assuming they had a future at all. "Let's get out of here."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my beta reader, Orchidellia, for all her feedback and ideas.


	50. Love and Agony from Afar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thane learns what's happened while he's been unconscious.

' _Wake up, Thane!' Urgent shouts in my ear. Bright lights causing pain in my eyes. Trying to move. Pain with every breath. Weakness when I try to move. A slender arm raising me upright, shoving my arms through a backpack. Floor tiles cold on bare feet. Where are my boots? So tired._

_The hallways is filled with people yelling, running. Chaos. No way to make sense of it. An arm around my waist, supporting me, guiding me. We enter a skycar. A familiar face - Professor Solus telling me something important, but exhaustion is stronger. Mordin's words are lost._

_Alarms. Falling. Sparks flying. 'Arrived faster than we expected!' Landing. No, crashing. Staggering through a village. How did we get here? Where's the skycar? 'Stay with us, Thane.'_

_Monstrosities attack. Blaster shoved into my hand. Familiar. Comforting. One falls. Go to the sea. Where's Mordin? Separated. Lost. A different voice. 'Follow me.'_

_More fighting. Endless fighting. Blessed peace at last. 'You can rest now, Thane.' Letting go of consciousness. Blissful sleep._

* * *

This time when he woke up, it was quiet, peaceful, and dark. He lay for several moments taking stock of the situation. Why were peace and quiet unexpected? Where was he? There was a feeling of forgetfulness that was very disturbing. Why was that? He had an unsettling feeling of deja vu that pointed to previous periods of wakefulness, but he couldn't recall any specific details.

Slowly the pieces started coming together in his mind. He had been on Sur'Kesh. Mordin had an experimental treatment for Keprel's. The pain had been excruciating. His hand clenched into a tight fist at the memory. Deliberately, he forced himself to relax and breathe deeply and slowly. Knives stabbed him in the chest, but the pain was much reduced from what it had been. More important was the fact that he could breathe more deeply and easily than he had been able to in years, despite the pain.

He pushed himself to a sitting position and tried again to figure out where he was. He was on a hospital bed in a dark, windowless room, and from the way his muscles ached, he had been immobile for days. Opening his eyes to their fullest, he could just make out the limned outline of a door in front of him. An IV line tangled around his arm, and he pulled it loose before he struggled to his feet. He stifled a moan as he braced himself against the bed until his legs stabilized. He was still wearing the same lightweight hospital clothing he vaguely recalled from their frantic flight, and something unfamiliar hung around his neck. Reaching up, he didn't find the silver torc he normally wore. Instead, there was a long metal necklace with two flat metal pieces attached.

He frowned as he tried to bring more details to mind, but they stubbornly remained vague and foggy. He wondered if he would ever regain his missing memories. Mordin! He did remember someone saying he had been separated. He hoped the professor had survived. What little he could recall was not encouraging.

He staggered toward the door and found the knob by touch, opening it to find a brightly lit hallway. A short distance to his left, it led to a noisy room filled with salarians rushing back and forth. He leaned against the door jam letting his eyes adjust to the light and peered down at the metal tags in his fingers. Memories flickered uncertainly before one suddenly locked in. Shepard's dog tags. What were they doing around his neck? Obviously she had visited him while he had been unconscious, and he smiled as he wrapped his fingers around the small metal rectangles. Liara had returned them to Shepard after they had fought the yahg. That led directly to another memory of the first time they made love, and he spent a few minutes luxuriating in that memory before he was interrupted by a young salarian with a mottled brown skin and his arm in a sling. "You're awake! Wondered how much longer you'd sleep."

The voice was familiar. The face was not. "I know you," Thane said slowly, almost more of a question. His voice was hoarse from disuse.

"Nerend Solus. Accompanied you on hospital evacuation," he said by way of introduction.

"Solus?"

"Mordin's nephew. Assisted him on your treatment."

Thane looked down to the crowded room again. "Is he here?"

There was the slightest slump in the salarian's posture. "Died. Stayed behind to ensure our escape."

Thane closed his eyes and offered up a prayer to Kalahira for Mordin's soul. "I am sorry."

"Me, too," Nerend replied. "He would have been pleased to see your recovery. Predicted it."

Thane drew a deep breath, relishing it even as the stabbing sensation in his chest repeated itself. He was growing used to the pain now. "It appears to have worked."

Nerend nodded quickly. "Been monitoring progress. Residual pain should continue to diminish over time. Will run full diagnostics later. You have questions?"

Thane had dozens of them. He started with the most obvious. "How long has it been and what's happening?" The last thing he remembered was the agonizing pain that consumed him body and mind, leaving no room for rational thought.

"Mordin induced medical coma as palliative for pain and to allow treatment to continue. That was over five standard weeks ago. Thirteen days ago, Reapers invaded Sur'Kesh. Reaper standard procedure to eliminate comsats and concentrate ships and ground troops in major cities. Evacuated personnel to shelters. Focusing on ground resistance."

"Standard procedure?" Just how much had he missed while he had been unconscious?

Nerend ticked homeworlds off on his fingers as he listed them. "Earth. Palaven. Thessia. Then Sur'Kesh. Same pattern each time."

Apparently, a lot. Thane was shaken. The Reapers had invaded the galaxy as Shepard had predicted. Suddenly, nothing was more important than finding out how she was. "Shepard? Where is she?"

Nerend's slim shoulders shrugged up and down. "Discovered Normandy was in orbit after Reapers appeared, but chased away by orbiting Reaper ships. Was looking for Mordin, but too late. Hasn't returned. Limited communication with Citadel. Suggest you check news feed for updates."

"I need to send her a message, tell her I'm alive," he told Nerend. She would be going out of her mind with worry for him. He knew, because he felt the same way. He knew his lover would be fighting the Reapers, looking for any way to save people and destroy her ancient enemy. He ached for missing her and wouldn't be content to rest until he was by her side once again. "No," he amended. "I need to travel to the Citadel. As quickly as possible."

Nerend shook his head slowly, for a salarian. "Travel offworld difficult. Dangerous. Have to pass blockade." Thane started to object, but Nerend's omni tool beeped. "Will return to infirmary later," he told Thane. "Will discuss more." And with that, the salarian headed back into the organized chaos down the hall.

Thane slumped against the door jam and considered his options. He quickly realized he had very few. He was stuck on Sur'Kesh until the Normandy returned or he could convince the salarians to let him accompany them on one of their courier ships. In either case, Sur'Kesh was under assault by the Reapers, and even though this place seemed secure for now, there was no promise it would remain that way. Since he was awake, he needed to regain his abilities as quickly as possible. He straightened and suppressed a grimace. That promised to be a painful proposition. He felt ancient and wasn't sure he could defend himself against an angry glare at the moment.

He drew another deep slow breath for the pure pleasure of it, delighting in the way his lungs filled even if they burned. Turning back into the hospital room, he found the light switch and closed the door for privacy. His entire body hurt, and alone in the privacy of his tiny space he sank down on the bed to catalogue his pains. The worst was his lungs. Every breath still pained him like a hundred burning knives in the chest, but it was less painful than it had been during that frantic half-remembered flight from the hospital. There were muscle aches in his legs that threatened to cramp painfully. He squeezed his fist and sighed in exasperation when his arm began to shake. He hadn't felt such pain and exhaustion since he was a child of six and newly given to the Guild. Then again, he had also never gone so long without moving and exercising his muscles. Or undergone an experimental and difficult medical procedure to reverse Keprel's Syndrome, he reminded himself.

He reached down to massage his aching thigh muscles and grimaced as he felt how much muscle mass he had lost. Even though he wanted nothing more than to lie still and sleep until the pain went away, he forced himself to start a series of gentle stretches and movements. By the time he was finished, the worst of the muscles aches had faded into a warm glow.

He turned his attention to the backpack that was thrown haphazardly into the back corner. He found his armored leathers in there. Gratefully, he skinned out of the hospital clothes and into familiar ones, although he had to spend some time adjusting the fit due to the loss of muscle mass. That done, he found his omni tool in the bottom of the bag. Flicking it on, he waited while it connected to the local net, hoping he had messages.

There were dozens of them. Most were from his beloved siha. Nearly as many were from Kolyat. There were even some in there from Milar, Garrus, Kasumi, Feron, and his brothers. For a man who had spent the last decade purposefully avoiding personal contact, the evidence of so many people who cared about him touched him deeply. He bowed his head and closed his eyes, but tears of joy slipped out anyway. This was what his siha had given him. A life that meant something to others, proof that he was both loved and missed.

Eagerly, he scrolled to the earliest one from his siha. He drank in her image from the video. Even though in his memory it had only been a few days since he had last seen her via video, his heart knew that it had been much longer. His smile was unguarded as he listened to her rant and ramble about everything from the quarians to humans to turians.

The smile disappeared when she told him about Kolyat and Hama. She knew he wouldn't want to be kept in suspense, so she got straight to the point of how his son had become entangled in Milar's schemes to the point where he'd had to call for Shepard's help. When he listened to Kolyat's messages, his son was even more terse, and he could sense there was much that Kolyat was leaving unsaid.

He reached the message she sent directly after the Reapers had appeared and started attacking Earth. There was a heaviness to her words and even her gestures. Even though she had been preparing for this moment for months, years even, it still looked as if it came as a shock. Her messages after that point were irregular, and often made references to messages that he didn't have. He recalled Nerend's harried explanation of how the Reapers were interfering with galactic comm systems and how the STG was using drones and couriers to get messages out. In her later messages, she looked older, run down and wearied.

He came to the last message from her, and his finger hovered uncertainly over the interface. He checked the date. Just a few days ago. Briefly he allowed himself to hope that she would tell him she was coming back to Sur'Kesh. He longed to be at her side with an intensity that was painful. Lips pressed together, he pressed play.

Her appearance struck him like a bullet to the heart. Her eyes were sunken and red-rimmed. He knew immediately that she had been crying. Her nose was red, and her hair was pulled into a messy ponytail with scraggly pieces hanging down by her face. " _Thane_..." She stopped abruptly and bit her trembling lower lip, then the words came tumbling out like water from a burst dam.

" _I miss you so much! I know I said I was sorry for being too late, but I can never say it enough. I need you, Thane. It's so hard..._ " A sob escaped and she stuffed a clenched fist to her mouth to stifle it. " _There's been so much death...and I...I...was wrong and..._ " She fought a war to keep the sobs inside. He knew, even in private, she hated to break down.

How his arms ached to hold her, to whisper comfort into her ear, to promise that he would be there for her, that she would always have him to rely on, and yet all he could do was watch as the painful video unfolded. Abruptly she shook her head and reached out to kill the video.

It flickered back on, and quite obviously some time had passed. She was calmer now and held a glass filled with ice and amber liquid.  _"I almost deleted this, but then I figured what the hell. EDI estimates only twenty percent of comm traffic is getting through to Sur'Kesh, so you probably won't even get this_." She spoke in a monotone voice, gaze staring into the distance just above the camera. " _So anyway...yeah. Maybe you heard that I came to Sur'Kesh a few days ago, but the Reapers beat us there. I found Mordin_." She stopped and took a drink, still staring sightlessly into the distance. " _Professor's gone. No more show tunes in the lab. To Mordin,_ " she said as she held her glass up then took a drink. " _I tried to find you, but we ran out of time. I told Kolyat not to worry, but I lied, Thane. I'm out of my mind with worry._

" _Not like I don't have enough to worry about anyway,_ " she continued.  _"We're losing a million people a day on Earth, either through fighting or harvesting. So many die fighting each day that we don't even have funeral services anymore. Just a moment of silence at dinner each night. Anderson sent me some footage to show what they're up against. Husks were herding people into a harvesting ship. Little boy, about six or so, must of got scared. He ran. Husk grabbed him, slammed him down on the ground. His head..."_  She scrubbed her hand across her eyes as her sentences got choppier and it got harder for her to talk. " _His dad chased after, but it was too late. Husks grabbed him and tore him apart. Literally. He was still reaching for his son when they ripped his guts out."_ She ended with a choked sob and drained her glass. She filled it again and drank half of it before she could continue.  _"Rest of the line broke and ran. Don't blame 'em. It was a slaughter. Then the husks tossed the bodies into the ship. Just more genetic material, right?_

" _Palaven is burning. The Reapers focus extra attention on the cities that fight back, and on Palaven, every city is fighting. I was on Menae, and Palaven hung in the sky overhead wreathed in fire. It was stunning."_ She gestured helplessly.  _"How do you fight an enemy that scorches planets?"_

She emptied her glass and filled it again. He could see that she was already drunk with no intention of stopping anytime soon, and it reminded him painfully of Alchera when she drank to forget the pain. _"Nightmares are back,"_ she stated abruptly.  _"Expected them. I deserve them. Got so bad I took one of Chakwas' sleeping pills. Bad idea. Still had the nightmares, only this time I knew I was dreaming, but I couldn't wake up. Lasted for hours. Worst night of my life. So I'm back to the tried and true method_ ," she said as she lifted her glass to the camera.

She leaned back against the couch and closed her eyes.  _"Can I tell you something?"_  she asked before she laughed humorlessly.  _"Not like you can object, right? I made a mistake on Horizon. Big mistake. Huge,"_  she emphasized drunkenly, spreading her arms wide.  _"Thought I knew best, had all the answers. Everything would turn out alright, just like before. Just like on the Collector's Base. Suicide mission, but we got everyone out safe. Yay, me_.  _Thought I could do it again, save everyone. Instead, I killed them all. More refugees, just trying to survive. Thought they were going someplace safe, but it was a Cerberus lie. I had a choice. Shoot a few hundred, or disrupt the network. Tried to save them, but it didn't work. So sure of myself..."_ She trailed off, and Thane thought she might be falling asleep.

He was miserable and angry on her behalf, mostly because he knew that she would have no one to share this burden with. Garrus would help as much as he could, but who would soothe her nightmares away? He wanted to be at her side to ease her heartbreak, to at least be someone to commiserate with over the hard choices, to remind her that she couldn't save everyone, that sometimes, no matter how hard you try, people die, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

" _Everyone's looking to me for guidance. They promoted me to Admiral and put me on the War Council. Fucking hilarious, isn't it? They wouldn't listen to me for years. Now that the Reapers are here and people are dying, they're begging me to tell them what to do. And when something goes wrong, they blame me for it."_ She sighed heavily and scrubbed her hand through her hair, causing it to stick out in all directions.

" _Where are you, Thane? Did Mordin get you somewhere safe, like he promised? Did you ever wake up? Or are you one of the Reapers' minions now, like so many millions of others?"_ She sighed again and leaned back in her chair.  _"Do you think if I delete this message, it'll get to you? Dead messages for dead lovers? Or if I just keep the recording running, you could keep me company while I drink myself to sleep. Bet that would be pretty boring, though. I wish you would come home, Thane. I don't think I can do this alone much longer."_  She paused to drain her glass again and refill it.

" _EDI did a prediction. At the current rate of harvesting, humanity will be extinct in twenty seven years. Sounds like a long time, doesn't it? Except that if we don't figure out a way to win this war in the next three years, our military and resources will be exhausted, and there will be no more fighting back. So there you go. If Retribution doesn't work, I have three years of ever dwindling resources to defeat an enemy that's been scouring the galaxy for millions of years. Doesn't exactly seem like a fair fight, does it?_

" _I need you, Thane. It's too much for me. I can't care anymore. Caring is too painful. I can feel little bits of myself just withering up and blowing away. How can I care about a company, or even a platoon when a million civilians die every day?"_

She brought her attention back to the screen.  _"Please, Thane. Don't be dead. I need you to be alive. Come home soon. Before there's nothing of me left."_

She reached out to end the recording, leaving Thane sitting on the floor with tears of his own spilling down his cheeks and holding on to her dog tags that she had left with him. He had known it would be hard, but like most, he had never considered the full impact of a Reaper invasion. And he had only her descriptions to go by. How much worse must it be for her to have seen it and made the decisions that cost so many lives? He saw the desperation in her eyes, the way she gripped her glass as she tried so hard to forget what she'd seen and done. He wondered what else she hadn't told him. What actions had she been forced to take that others blamed her for?

Home. She wanted him to come home, to her. He wanted to be by her side so badly. Prior to Shepard recruiting him, he hadn't had a home in ten years, only a series of safe houses between contracts. Now, home was the Normandy where Joker told prurient jokes, Rupert served mostly edible meals, and EDI saw everything but was circumspect about it. His angel needed him, and he was half a galaxy away. Sleep was an impossibility now, in spite of his exhaustion. He stood up and pulled on his jacket and went in search of Nerend. There had to be a way off this planet and back to his siha's side, and by all the gods of Rakahna, Earth, Thessia and every other planet in the galaxy, he was going to find it!

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Orchidellia, my beta reader, for all her great comments and suggestions.


	51. Weapons Ready

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard is ready to broadcast the weapon against the Reapers, but Cerberus has other plans.

The  _Normandy_ stayed over Horizon. Even though Shepard desperately wanted to put this cursed planet behind her, Retribution, Legion, and EDI wanted to stay to investigate the Reaper technology and communication standards that had been used on the refugees. As EDI reminded her, they would get only one chance to deploy the weapon against the Reapers, and they couldn't afford to throw away any opportunity to ensure that it would be completely effective.

There was no way she was setting foot on that planet ever again, so Miranda was leading the science team. Jacob, Tali, Legion, and Retribution had gone down with her.

It was nearly dinnertime, and she was trying, and failing, to follow up on some notes from the war efforts on Earth, but she couldn't keep her mind from replaying the horrors on Horizon yesterday. When her door chimed with a visitor request, she answered it gratefully.

Jacob stepped through the doors, but he refused to meet her eyes. "Admiral," he said, holding himself stiffly at attention, even though he was dressed in civvies. He looked supremely uncomfortable.

"You can drop the formality, Jacob," she told him as she stood to greet him.

He pressed his lips together briefly and shook his head. "I don't have anything else left, Admiral. Here," he said as he abruptly thrust his hand out toward her. He opened his hand, and she saw his Cerberus insignia glinting against his skin.

"What's this?" she asked in confusion.

He lifted his hand toward her, urging her to take it. Only after she did so, would he answer. He tucked both hands behind his back as he fell into a parade rest. "I'm officially resigning from Cerberus. After what I saw on Horizon..." He paused to clear his throat. "That's not what I signed on for, Admiral. I signed up with them to help humanity. What they did down there..."

She curled her fingers around his insignia, and with her other hand, she clasped his shoulder. "You did help humanity, Jacob. You were an integral part of our team. Without everyone's help, we wouldn't have made it through. Certainly not without losses."

"I'm proud to have been a part of that, Admiral. Shepard," he amended and relaxed slightly. "At least I'll have that. It's a good feeling when the future's so uncertain."

"Hey, I can always try to get you reinstated with the Alliance if you want."

He shook his head. "Thanks, but I'll pass. Even if the opportunity came up, I can't see myself taking it. I had good reasons for leaving the Alliance, and they haven't changed."

"I can't promise much, Jacob, but I can promise that you'll always have a place with me. No matter what happens."

"Thanks, Shepard. You don't know how much that means to me."

She gestured toward the seating area. "Did you want to chat about anything?"

He shook his head again and took a step backward. "Thanks, but I got other plans. I just had to give that to you. And Admiral, I'm sorry, but I don't think I can go back to Horizon again."

She saw the same haunted look in his eyes that she had seen in her mirror this morning. It was hard on all of them, and she nodded her understanding. "Of course, Jacob."

Grunt took Jacob's place, and Miranda's science team kept investigating. Two days, four, then five passed. Retribution said they were nearing a breakthrough, and all Shepard could do was give them time to work. She had spent the intervening days working on something just as important: dealing with the emotional consequences of her decision on Horizon. She had allowed herself one night to fall to pieces after it happened, and she occasionally regretted the drunken video mail she'd sent to Thane, but since thinking about it also brought to mind the highly uncertain status of her lover, she tried her best not to think about it. Instead, she threw herself into her work and the equally hard, if nebulous, job of processing her emotions. Deep down, as much as she hated staying near Horizon, she was grateful for the momentary break it gave her to calm down. She'd also been in touch with Rina, and although the blonde would never admit it to anyone else, she'd been as grateful as Shepard to have someone to discuss the shitty aftereffects of spectacular failure, even if it was in the cause of something good.

Still, there were still long periods where she needed a way to distract herself. With little else to do, she was working off her frustration and guilt in the gym, hoping to tire herself out enough to get some real sleep for a change. So far, she'd tried boxing with the sandbag, Thane's  _takats_ , and boot camp calisthenics, but she couldn't focus on anything. She'd finally settled for the mindless monotony of running on the treadmill with the music blaring full volume. Her ears hurt, her feet were numb, her legs were burning, and she loved it.

She closed her eyes and concentrated on running straight, using her other senses to stay on the belt. The sense of danger if she strayed, of being thrown ass over teakettle if she made a misstep, sharpened her focus and finally pushed the disturbing images that had been plaguing her from her mind.

She fell into that timeless sense of peace, and for a blessed moment, all was quiet. Of course, it couldn't last, and she became aware of another presence. She tried to ignore it, but her concentration was broken. Her right foot came down too far to the side and caught on the stationary portion of the treadmill, tripping her up. Her eyes flew open and she grabbed the handles just in time to keep from falling flat on her face. Panting both from exertion as well as her near-fall, she stopped the treadmill and looked up to see James standing nearby with arms crossed over his chest, just staring at her.

"What?" she asked, trying and failing to keep the annoyance out of her voice. She immediately chided herself. James didn't deserve to bear the brunt of her foul mood.

"I want to know how you do it," he said without preamble.

"Do what?" she asked as she stepped off the treadmill and grabbed a towel.

"Put it out of your mind. Horizon," he clarified.

She grimaced as she scrubbed the sweat from her face and gestured for him to join her at one of the workstations to the side. "I haven't," she admitted bluntly. "And I never will, completely. But you learn to cope. There's all the psych stuff they tell you in college and training. But the fact of it is that none of it will work until you believe it. I've seen some strong people wash out for what seems the most minor stuff. I've watched a couple N7s just lose it from stuff they've seen or done. You want to know how I cope?" she asked.

He nodded, still watching her intently. She knew he was thinking of Fehl Prime as well as Horizon. She dropped the towel into her lap and looked back levelly. "I find someone to live for." When he drew his brow together in confusion, she continued. "You can't do this just to be a badass, James. Or for notoriety or advancement. None of that will keep you going when things go to hell. Your brain will always give out long before your body ever will, no matter how bad the pain is. It's a matter of finding someone to rescue, someone to fight for, and knowing deep in your heart that you will give absolutely everything you have, down to your last breath, to keep that person safe."

Her hands clenched around the towel as she keenly missed Thane. She had sworn to keep him safe, and instead, he was missing somewhere in the muddy, hidden depths of Sur'Kesh.

James looked away, up at the ceiling and over at the wall. Anywhere but her. "Yeah, but what happens when you fail? When you let that person die?"

She closed her eyes and wondered if he was reading her thoughts. "You're not perfect, James. Neither am I. No one is. You're gonna make mistakes. You're gonna let someone down, and sometimes it will be your fault. You have to accept that there are no right or wrong decisions, only choices made in the moment. You make the best choice you have, and deal with the consequences. Sometimes it means people die."

_Don't be dead, Thane._ That was the mantra that she couldn't get out of her head lately. But James was talking about Horizon. Images of civilians falling to the ground on Horizon rose up to haunt her, and she twisted the towel in her hands. Then she took a deep breath and purposefully relaxed. "You want to know how I get through it? Why some people make it and others crack?"

He nodded.

"You have to forgive yourself and move on. You can't hold on to the guilt." How many times had she told herself that?

He made a disparaging noise and shifted uncomfortably in his seat, making her grin wryly at him.

"Don't believe me?"

"It's easy to say the words. I've heard them, too. But  _how_ do you do it?"

"I didn't say it was easy!" She leaned back in her chair. "I told you I'm not perfect, James. I have nightmares. Horrible ones. There are nights I drink to go to sleep. There are mental scars just as deep as physical ones, but you can't let that stop you. You have to learn to accept what you did and forgive yourself, because someone still needs your help, and you can't help them if you're caught up wallowing in your guilt all the time."

Thane might be dead. She shied away from that thought, even though it became more real every passing day. But even if he was, there were still people who needed her help, like her brother, who turned passion into art. She thought of him in one of the harvester lines and vowed she would do anything to keep that from happening.

"Seriously? That's your answer?"

She nodded in the face of his skepticism. "Dead serious. When you live for someone else, when your only purpose is to save someone, you can let go of the things that hold you back, including guilt. Some people I know turn to religion. They let a higher power absolve them of their guilt. If it works for you, use it."

"Callous, Lola,"

She shrugged. "Our job is to save people, James. You can save one person and feel good about it. If you want to save billions, you have to accept that you can't save them all, and sometimes, you have to do things that will cause others to suffer or die. It's great to be called a hero. What about Endo? Could you manage to keep going if people called you Butcher for actions that saved thousands, even though you killed hundreds to do so? That's the truth of what we do, James. If you can't learn to forgive yourself and live for others, you won't make it."

He made a face as he considered it. "I don't know, Lola. Sounds an awful lot like what this Illusive Man has been saying. Sacrifice some to save the whole."

Fair enough comparison, she thought. "I suppose it comes down to what goal we're fighting for. I'm fighting for everyone to have choices, not just humanity. I want a fair galactic society, and as much as I complain and bitch about the dalatrass or other Councilors, I'd take them a million times over a deluded god figure like the Illusive Man." She heaved herself to her feet, groaning softly at muscles gone cold and stiff. "Think about it James. Be honest with yourself. And remember, it's not easy. Nothing worth having ever is."

Later that evening, she decided she needed to follow her own advice and seek out company instead of moping in her cabin or drowning in drink. She headed for the port lounge and Kasumi, but the door was closed - unusual for so early in the evening. Kasumi usually kept the door open and a steady stream of people wandered in and out. Shepard stopped outside the door and listened carefully. She heard Kasumi's musical laugh followed by indistinct words in a low voice. Whatever was said made her laugh again, and Shepard smiled unconsciously at the happy sound. She tilted her head to the side and closed her eyes to listen better to the male voice. Jacob. She opened her eyes and stepped back, smiling fondly at the closed door and the pair beyond it. She was happy for them. It had taken Kasumi quite some time, but apparently, she had finally managed to steal Jacob's affections.

She turned around to head to the mess when another unusual sound caught her attention. She narrowed her eyes and glared suspiciously at the door to Life Support. Knowing she was snooping, she took a step closer anyway. Vocals, both high and low pitched, carried clearly through the metal door and left no doubt as to what was occurring in Life Support. A multitude of emotions flashed through her. She was embarrassed to be eavesdropping, worried about what Thane would think, as well as happy for the young couple. She also realized suddenly just what could have been heard in this corridor when Thane was on board the Normandy, and her cheeks flushed hotly.

"EDI," she asked softly, "has Hama actually spent any time in her assigned quarters?"

EDI's responses were growing more and more nuanced ever since her AI shackles had been removed. Now she sounded amused. "Hama spent approximately two hours in her quarters the first night and has spent every subsequent night in Life Support."

Shepard just laughed and shook her head as she headed into the mess. At least she could say she tried to separate them, but she didn't have it in her heart to force the issue. "EDI, see if you can requisition a bigger bed for Life Support when we reach port, would you?" She remembered all too well how narrow that cot was.

She saw James playing cards in the mess with Tali, Garrus and a few other crew, and dragged a chair over. The other players scooted around to make room for her. "Deal me in," she told him, ignoring the groans of the other crew. After an hour, everyone was broke except for her, James, and Garrus, and James wasn't doing so well.

Shepard won another hand, and Garrus laughed good naturedly as he tossed his cards down. James swore without heat. "Damn, I was sure I had that round."

Shepard grinned broadly as she swept up their credits. "Misdirection is just as important as concealment. You thought exactly what I wanted you to." Shepard was still laughing when EDI broke in. "Shepard, we have it!" It was the most emotion she'd ever heard from the AI.

She paused in dealing out the next hand. "Have what, EDI?" she asked cautiously.

"We've compiled the Reaper language. We have a working translation of sufficient complexity to transmit the weapon." They all stared at each other for a moment, not quite daring to hope that they had heard correctly.

"That means..." She only realized she was standing when she belatedly heard the sound of her chair crashing to the ground.

"Yes, Shepard," EDI said, and she would swear the AI sounded delighted. "We can take the war to the Reapers."

"Hot damn!" James crowed as he pounded her on the shoulder. "'Bout time!" Garrus swept Tali up in a triumphant hug.

Joker broke in, and she could almost see the shit-eating grin on his face even though he was speaking over the comm. "Admiral, permission to set course to the Citadel?"

"Fast as you can get us there, Joker," she confirmed, still grinning like a fool at everyone. "EDI, have the research team meet me in the conference room."

The mood throughout the ship was jubilant compared to the last few days. "Miranda, have you figured out if there actually is a communication terminal in the Citadel?" It was one of the theories they'd had, since Sovereign had targeted the Citadel when it first appeared years ago.

"We're ninety five percent sure, Shepard, but we'll have to go to the Citadel to do specific scans."

Retribution broke into the conversation. "I am confident that I can broadcast low power signals that will hone in on the location of any communication terminals. The downside is that it will have to be short range, a few hundred meters at most."

Shepard stared at the Citadel schematic that EDI projected over the conference table. "It makes most sense for any communication terminal to be located in the docking ring or Presidium. We'll start there."

_Finally!_  she exulted in the privacy of her own thoughts. Something major was going their way!

* * *

"Shepard, you need to get up here!" Joker's voice jerked her awake from her nap, and she sat up with pistol in hand before she realized the threat wasn't actually in her bedroom with her.

"What's wrong?"

"Something's wrong with Citadel docking control. They're not answering. All frequencies are either dead or jammed, and there's approximately a metric fuck-ton of confused ships hanging around the docking ring."

She jammed her feet into her boots and was in the lift before he had even finished speaking. By the time she reached the cockpit, he had more news. Unfortunately, it was bad. "We're close enough to pick up some local station frequencies. According to C-sec, there's some sort of coup underway."

"Coup?" She leaned over his chair to stare at the readouts.

"Cerberus," he clarified.

"Fucking hell," she breathed as she stared at him in disbelief. "Seriously?"

Joker shoved his hat back on his head and scratched at his scalp. "Doesn't make sense to me, either. What do they want?"

"Control," she muttered as her mind kicked into overdrive. It was far too much of a coincidence that Cerberus was making an armed takeover of the Citadel now. The Illusive Man was pushing to solidify his position. He knew that she was in possession of a weapon that could destroy the Reapers and for some insane reason he was moving to prevent her from using it. On the other hand, it also confirmed her suspicions that the communication terminal they were seeking was on the Citadel. "Joker, get us to the Citadel. I don't care how you do it, but I want boots on the ground in thirty minutes."

She saw the scowl on his face as she turned around and stomped down the gangway. "All specialists in the conference room in ten minutes," she ordered. "We're going to war."

* * *

The conference room table was littered with weapons, grenades and heat sinks. "We'll be dividing into two teams," she told them. "Garrus will lead the second fire team. Your job is long range reconnaissance. Use the frequency Retribution gave you and scout across the Presidium. Move fast and don't get pinned down." She assigned all of her tech specialists to him. "Tali, Hama, Kasumi, and Jacob, you're with Garrus. We need to find out where that communication terminal is."

She looked out over the rest of her team - James, Grunt, Legion, Kolyat, and Miranda, all to guard Retribution. "The rest of us are headed to the Council chambers, on the assumption that that's the most logical location for the transmitter. We'll spiral out from them. Protecting Retribution is our highest priority. EDI says that Cerberus came in hard and took out C-sec operations first. Expect heavy resistance as you move. Any C-sec support is likely to be light and uncoordinated."

The ship jostled unexpectedly and the sound of metal grinding on metal shrieked through the ship. Joker spoke over the comm. "Sorry 'bout that, Admiral. With docking control out of order, we kinda had to make our own space. You might want to invoke that Spectre status later to avoid a fine that'd probably be big enough to buy a small colony," he added quickly.

She merely grunted, not concerned in the least with docking regulations as she led her team to the airlock. Then again, she thought as she looked down at the eight plus meter drop to the gangway below, those regulations did exist for reason. "Did you have to dock  _on top_  of a cargo ship, Joker?"

"All the slots were full, Shepard. You told me by any means necessary," he reminded her.

She jumped down to the gangway, tucking and rolling back up to her feet effortlessly. The rest of her team made the jump with varying degrees of skill and trepidation. She watched Kolyat lower Hama down so Grunt could catch her. Garrus did the same for Tali.

As soon as they stepped through the decon chamber, the situation degenerated into chaos. Refugees were screaming and looking for cover as C-sec and Cerberus troops exchanged gunfire. She and Grunt led the charge up the ramp, taking out as many Cerberus troops as possible before they could realize they were under attack from a second front. The rest of her team caught up and the firefight surged into a mass of armor clashing and omni blades flashing.

Soon, the Cerberus troops were down, and she looked back at Garrus. He nodded once and took off down another hallway to begin their search. The last she saw of them was Tali's drone hovering near the ceiling before it dropped down and took off after them. Looking around, she caught Kolyat staring after them as well. She understood how he felt, but he needed to learn to deal with it on his own.

"Alright, let's move out." Her first stop was C-sec headquarters. It took far longer than she anticipated. EDI had been right about the heavy resistance. Cerberus must have landed every trooper they had, and it was quickly clear that each of them had been modified with Reaper tech. It made them significantly tougher to take down, but it also seemed to interfere with their cognition and self-preservation instincts. Rather than seeking cover, they would tend to stay out and soak up far more damage than seemed possible before falling.

C-sec HQ was just ahead, and she spotted an officer pinned down by the door. She sent Miranda and Kolyat off to the side while the rest of them drew the Cerberus attention away from the C-sec officer. Quickly enough, they fell to Miranda's and Kolyat's sneak attacks behind them.

"Bailey!" She ran up the steps as soon as she recognized the tow-headed chief of C-sec. "You're hurt," she said as she kneeled by his side. Hurt was an understatement. He had multiple gunshot wounds to his torso and limbs. His weapon lay discarded at his side.

"You noticed," he groaned sarcastically.

She ripped open a medigel pack and pressed it up against the worst bullet wound in his side, then laid his hand on it to hold it in place. "What happened?"

"Well-coordinated," he panted as he closed his eyes and rested his head against the wall. "Hit here...other C-sec offices...transit stops." He had to catch his breath, and Shepard worried when she saw the dark red blood seeping underneath his fingers. "Tried to get...to the Council."

Miranda shoved her to the side to look at Bailey's injury. Lips moving silently, she sorted through the contents of her belt pack until she found the vial she was looking for and injected it into the Chief's arm.

Bailey opened his eyes and saw Kolyat standing behind Shepard. "Hey kid, lookit you. Shoulda known you'd get drawn...into...thick of things." He coughed and a thin stream of blood spilled down his chin.

"Bailey, do you know where Cerberus is headed? What are they looking for?" Shepard held her breath, hoping he had an answer for her.

He shook his head slowly. "Just doin' ...damn...paperwork and blam. Alarms. Gunfire. Hard just stayin'...'live." His breathing was slowing down, and he closed his eyes again. Shepard looked at Miranda in alarm. Miranda looked back and shook her head.

"Up," he said suddenly. "Heard 'em say...hold the lifts...so they could go up."

There was nothing to be done, but no matter how many times Shepard had seen it before, it was never easy to watch a companion leave this life. She stripped off her gauntlet and held Bailey's hand tight. His fingers were cold against hers. "The medics will be here soon, Bailey," she lied soothingly. "We'll get you to the hospital. Patch you up. Be good as new and back listening to the Council complain in no time."

He snorted out an exasperated breath that might have been a laugh if he'd had more energy. "Rather...take...vacation..."

She smiled and squeezed his hand. "Fishing, right?" He nodded fractionally. "Bet it's beautiful there. Big blue sky, cold running river? Lots of fish to catch. So many stars overhead at night." The corners of his lips turned up as he listened to her. "Just you and the river and the sky. Quiet. No problems. No worries. Peaceful. Sounds wonderful. You'll be there soon, Bailey. Nothing's gonna get in your way." She kept talking, making up a story about a place she'd never seen, might never see if the Reapers won. It didn't take long. A few more struggling breaths, and then he was still. She let his hand go and stood. "Good bye, Bailey. Hope you catch lots of fish. Let's go," she said, and her voice promised murder to those responsible for the death of her friend.

Up. Bailey had given them information with his dying breath, and she made sure the Cerberus troops in their way paid in kind. Garrus' team was also heading up on the far side of the Presidium.

They were several levels above the plush and open levels of galactic diplomacy. The increasing amount of Cerberus troops convinced her that she was on the right track, but it had been a grueling firefight. Her tech armor was barely functional anymore, flaring out harmlessly after absorbing only a fraction of the damage it was designed to take. Miranda was moving with a limp and in the right light, she could see fresh blood staining her black catsuit. Kolyat had retreated into a mental space that allowed combat and nothing else. But Garrus sent her structural scans from his team that showed they were nearing a large chamber just two more levels above them.

"Almost there," she reassured them. "You're doing well," he said to Kolyat, and was relieved when he blinked slowly and nodded to her. "We'll coordinate with Garrus' team. They've found an entrance on the opposite side. It won't be easy," she said to them. "Cerberus is aware that we're coming, but when we do, we'll bring hell down on their heads."

She slotted a fresh heat sink into her weapon and glanced at her team. Each of them stood tall and confident, and her heart swelled with pride. "Ready?"

Cerberus had placed shock troops in strategic locations in the next two levels. There was no subtle way through, no place for subterfuge or misdirection in the utilitarian stairwells. It was brutal carnage where the outcome depended on who could take the most damage before falling. She left Kolyat and Miranda behind to guard Retribution while she, Grunt, James, and Legion moved into the thick of battle. Her tech armor was completely useless, and at one point, she saw that James' helmet visor was badly starred from bullet impacts, but removing it would have been suicide in the narrow confines. Even Grunt was slowing with the amount of damage he'd been forced to soak up.

When they finally cleared the last choke point, she stopped for a moment to give everyone a breather and try to repair armor for the last push. Garrus had fortunately found a Keeper tunnel into the chamber. Cerberus had only lined the tunnel with sensors, which his team had easily bypassed. Tali's drone showed a mass of Cerberus troops waiting for Shepard's team behind the door.

Garrus' team created a distraction on the far side of the chamber. Shepard waited until scans showed that at least a third had gone to deal with it before she nodded to Kolyat to blow the door inward. Her team boiled inward in a destructive melee of explosions and gunfire.

When the swirl of fighting swept to the side and allowed her a second to glance around, she took in the battlefield at a glance. Most of the shock troops near her team were down, but she couldn't spot Miranda or Kolyat. Garrus' team was causing a similar ruckus on the far side of the chamber about thirty meters away. The chamber itself was ringed with Keeper tunnels, and above that the room was encircled with windows that looked out into the nebula and cast soft bluish light over the firefight still raging violently all around.

A knot of dark-clad figures clustered at the far end of the chamber caught her attention. She looked closer and snarled as she recognized Cerberus' top assassin standing confidently at the front, arms crossed and waiting for her. She didn't have to see what they were guarding to know it was the transmitter. Leng would have been assigned to guard the very thing they were seeking. A fresh surge of adrenaline filled her as she gathered her team and started making the final push for the transmitter. This time, when she and Leng met, there would be no holding back, and only one of them would survive the encounter.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to Orchidellia, my wonderful beta reader.


	52. One Falls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard and Leng meet again as deadly adversaries.

The Reaper gauntlet around Sur'Kesh was formidable, but the salarian pilot of the courier ship  _Elcyer_ was better. There had been some initial resistance to letting Thane hitch a ride to the Citadel, but finally the weight of Shepard's name, as well as his own growing, and still uncomfortable to him, celebrity had been enough to sway them.

There wouldn't be anything new in the news feed until they went through the relay into Citadel space. For some reason that no one had been able to pinpoint, the Reapers had left the Citadel alone. Thane spent the trip up to that point in silent meditation, to the annoyance of his chatty salarian pilot.

He braced himself for the jump through the relay and then could wait no longer. He checked his omni tool for messages and news of Shepard and the  _Normandy_ , hoping they were at the Citadel. At the least, he could send her a message letting her know that he had survived the fall of Sur'Kesh.

As he was composing his message to her, he was surprised when EDI sent a real-time request for a call. "Thane?" He was surprised at the amount of emotion he heard in that single word. "I show that you are on board the  _Elcyer_ , just entering Citadel space. Are you well?"

"Yes, EDI, I'm very well. Where are you? How's Shepard?" He couldn't keep the smile from his face. It seemed his prayers had been answered, and his love was indeed on the station. However, EDI's next words changed everything.

"Thane, you need to get to the Citadel as quickly as possible. Shepard and the crew of the  _Normandy_ are engaged in stopping a Cerberus takeover of the Citadel. She is currently fighting her way through the Presidium to find a transmitter for Retribution."

Thane's thoughts tumbled over each other as he tried to understand all the implications in EDI's brief speech. The pilot cried out in shock, drawing Thane's attention even as EDI explained over the comm link. "I have taken control of your ship. Docking control is down, so I will navigate your ship in. Shepard needs your help, Thane."

"Understood, EDI. I am ready to lend my assistance as soon as we arrive." He paused before making his request, one that tore at his heart, but he knew was tactically necessary. "Don't tell her I'm coming, EDI. She can't afford the distraction." He knew she was more than half-convinced he was dead, and he was afraid the unexpected news would cause her to lose focus.

"Understood, Thane." EDI filled Thane in on the current situation as she piloted the courier ship to the Citadel at speeds far exceeding mandated approach speeds. Even the pilot was showing nervousness mixed in with his obvious admiration and envy. It was clear he wished he could do such a thing himself on a regular basis.

EDI pushed the abilities of the small ship to its limits, to the point where Thane had to force himself not to clutch at the seat restraints the way the pilot was doing. "EDI, that's not the docking ring," Thane felt compelled to point out when it went sailing beneath them.

"No, Thane. That would place you too far from Shepard to reach her in time."

"Where are we going, EDI?" His voice didn't waver, but there was definitely some concern as they headed high above the docking ring.

"The Presidium. Shepard and her team are eleven levels above the Council chambers heading into a Keeper area. They are facing heavy Cerberus resistance. Thane, you should be aware that she took every specialist on board the  _Normandy_ with her, including Kolyat and Hama."

Thane forced himself not to react to the news. In any event, EDI was maneuvering the small ship toward the Presidium. She lined it up and with a sharp impulse to the thrusters breached the windows and field that surrounded the Presidium. Immediately, alarms on both the ship and the Presidium sounded, but they were inside the pressurized portion of the station now, and EDI cycled the airlock.

His pistol was tight in his hand as he jumped down into the seething mass of confused and panicking citizens. EDI directed him to the stairwell where Shepard had ascended, but the grand sweeping turns of the Presidium walkways were packed. He glanced up and jumped to the ledge that ran along the outside of the second level and ran lightly along it, avoiding the mess below.

Everywhere he looked, he saw evidence of a violent firefight with fallen troops in yellow and black, many more in C-sec blue, and far too many in civilian attire lying motionless where they had fallen.

Finally he reached the stairwell, but just as he went to enter, he became aware of someone deliberately approaching him. Whirling quickly with pistol up, he saw the drell chief of security, Captain Sokje. The two of them stared appraisingly at each other for a second. "What do you want?" Thane asked, the story of Kolyat's escape from the Citadel coming to mind.

"You obviously know what's going on," the tan drell answered with a jerk of his head toward the stairwell. "I want to help."

"I heard what you tried to do to Kolyat," he pushed back, pistol still pointed unwaveringly at the other.

"I tried to prevent him from taking a hit list to terrorists. I was doing my job, Krios!" Sokje answered, and his subvocals dropped into the threat range. Then he glanced away, and his subvocals changed to guilt and pain. "I was played, and it cost me two good men." He looked back and met Thane's eyes with a steady gaze. "I've no cause to trouble your son anymore, and every cause to stop this madness. You wouldn't be here unless you were connected to Shepard and whatever is going on. I want to help," he reiterated.

Thane weighed what the other was saying, both in words and subvocals, and nodded abruptly. "Let's go."

EDI chimed in urgently. "Thane, you must hurry. Shepard has engaged the main force, and they are heavily outnumbered."

As they took off running up the stairs, Thane heard Sokje call for reinforcements from his security staff, but it would take a few more minutes for them to follow. They were halfway up, and Thane's lungs were burning, but he was breathing easily, so he ignored the pain. There was still a lightness to his muscles; even several days of constant rehabilitation movements couldn't erase weeks of immobility, but he simply noted it and made adjustments for his weaknesses.

Sokje eyed him curiously as they ran. "You're supposed to be dead," he finally said.

Thane borrowed one of Shepard's lines. "I got better."

Sokje just grunted. "Look forward to hearing how. Later."

They both hurtled over a bunch of Cerberus troops lying dead on a landing. So far, the only casualties they'd seen had been Cerberus, and Thane prayed it would stay that way. He was far more worried for Kolyat than Shepard, but he also knew that she would be taking point in the thickest part of the battle. That thought pushed him to climb faster.

The pair broke through the door into the chamber and saw the absolute death and destruction all around them. Thane paused to scan the room. Immediately he saw Shepard's brilliant white hard suit in the thick of it, just as he expected, at the far end of the room. Glancing around, he tried to find Kolyat among the fighters but when he didn't, he fearfully looked among the fallen on the floor. He saw the familiar shade of teal lying motionless. "No!"

In a flash, he was by his son's side. Kolyat was thankfully just unconscious. Thane saw that a medipack had been applied to the severe compound injury on Kolyat's leg. In an instant, he diagnosed his son's condition - shattered lower leg from a heavy weapon or explosive, bleeding contained for now, but he wouldn't be walking off the battlefield.  _Maybe never_ , whispered a voice in the back of his mind.

A shadow flickered off to his side, and he spun on one knee, weapon up and primed to fire, but when he saw Hama's frightened face, he pointed the pistol down again. "He's alive," she said. "I've been protecting him." Her voice wavered, but her pistol was steady in her hand. "Stay in the shadows, attack when they don't expect." He could tell she was repeating what she'd been taught, but it was the right thing. He stood, attention split between Kolyat and Shepard. He knew there was a very real possibility that both Kolyat and Hama could die at the hands of a determined foe. "Go!" Hama said in a harder voice. "Trust me. Help Shepard."

At the same time Sokje turned back and yelled, "Come on!"

Thane rose smoothly to his feet and turned toward the fighting at the far end of the chamber. Falling into single-minded focus, he pushed away any thoughts that didn't immediately concern himself or Shepard. Racing forward, he caught up with Sokje. Each had their weapon out and picked off outlying targets as they ran forward. He saw Garrus' team reach the outskirts of the main skirmish. Almost at the same instant, he saw Tali go down hard from a sniper perched high. Sokje saw it, too. "I'm on it," he said as he leapt toward the ceiling girders and shadows to work his way toward the sniper.

A lean, dark shadow tackled Shepard, sending them both rolling on the floor and further away from the melee. She instantly disengaged and jumped backward from her enemy, who was wielding a monomolecular sword. Thane's lips drew back in a wordless snarl. He recognized her enemy from her descriptions as well as rumor and scuttlebutt through the shadowy circles Thane frequented. Her assailant's name was Kai Leng, and he had a reputation for deadly hand to hand as well as sadism. He pushed himself faster to get to her side. He would not fail another siha.

* * *

Leng's expression was that unique combination of intense concentration mixed with hatred and utter determination to kill your opponent. Shepard knew her face mirrored his. From the second they engaged, it was a blinding exchange of sword against omni blade, kinetic blasts against biotics, and evasion against deadly accurate gunfire. If she'd had even a second to think, she would have been grateful for her Cerberus enhancements and Thane's training that allowed her to stand against Cerberus' most deadly assassin. Hand to hand wasn't her specialty, and she'd never had to face a fighter with Leng's particularly deadly skill set in a fight to the death. Even with her advantages, she was barely able to deflect his lightning fast thrusts, and she'd sacrificed several critical pieces of ablative armor to the molecule-thin edge of his blade.

She shifted quickly to disengage and put some distance between them. If she could find a few feet of distance, she could unleash both a hailstorm of bullets as well as her reave attack, but Leng made sure to stay inside her defenses, forcing her to use hand to hand. It also didn't help that he was relatively fresh, while she had fought a long and hellish battle just to reach this point, but imminent death had a way of releasing previously locked reservoirs of strength and speed.

She fired and saw a splash of blood as she creased his ear. There wasn't even time to curse that she had been so close and still missed before she had to block his sword attack. She dipped low, then came up with a vicious kick to the back of his leg, but he dodged at the last second. They both spun to gain position, and it gave her enough time to power a biotic throw to push him backward.

Leng simply rode it out, sliding backward along the floor and then charged forward again. She sidestepped but stumbled against a body lying behind her. That single instant of distraction was enough to allow his blade to slip past her guard and bury itself deep in her gut. His lips twisted in pleasure as he jerked the blade upward until it caught on her abdominal armor plate.

Her eyes bugged outward at the shock. The pain didn't arrive for another couple of seconds while he gloated in her face. "The great Shepard. Not so great now, are you? I killed you, and you can die knowing I'll kill everyone you ever cared about. Then humanity can take its rightful place with the Reapers to enforce our order on the galaxy. You lose, Shepard," he gloated.

She could feel her strength draining away, but she refused to let this asshole win. If she was going down, she was taking him with her. Her hands felt numb, but she could still feel the pressure of her pistol in her grip. Grabbing his armored vest with one hand, she brought the pistol up to his side and held the trigger until the heat sink overloaded. "So do you, fucker," she gasped in satisfaction as he staggered backward. She groaned in agony as his sword slid free. Her blood dripped from the tip to the grey metal floor and held her attention with morbid fascination for a second. Looking back at her enemy, she grinned wolfishly as she saw him stagger again and hold his hand to his bloody side.

The world jolted painfully as she fell to her knees, but she struggled to remain upright. She tried to lift her gun again to shoot him, but it was too heavy and fell to the floor with a dull clang.

One of his Phantoms appeared at his side to offer support, but he waved her off. Shepard glanced down at her gun, then reached for it. She didn't want to die without knowing for certain that he would go with her, but she couldn't keep her balance and ended up falling prone to the floor.  _No!_ she raged internally.  _Pick up the damn gun!_ She split her attention between her gun and Leng. When she reached it again, she needed to target him quickly before he had a chance to dodge again.

Another black-clad figure wreathed in biotic energy interposed itself between her and Leng, and she growled at the interference. She blinked her eyes to try and clear her vision, because there was something disturbingly familiar about the person facing Leng. Her eyes refused to stay open no matter how she struggled, and struggle she did because the newcomer reminded her painfully of Thane.

Then she laughed at the irony. He had promised to meet her across the sea when her time came. She hadn't expected it to be a sea of blood and bodies, but it was fitting given her life history. Her mouth moved, but no words actually made it past her lips. " _Thank you, Kalahira..."_

* * *

"No!" Thane was still too far away when he saw Leng's sword slide through Shepard until the exposed tip gleamed redly against her back. She managed to shoot him in the side and make him fall back before she collapsed. As much as he wanted to check on her, he needed to finish off her enemies.

Leng wasn't down yet, although he was severely injured. Another Cerberus agent stood protectively in front of him. That agent was dead in seconds as Thane moved forward in a blur. Leng could still swing his sword, and Thane had to dodge a kinetic blast. It gave Leng enough time to cloak, but Thane spotted him and fired, disrupting the cloak.

Thane moved forward to engage the other assassin. A nerve strike against Leng's sword arm interrupted his swing. Shepard's shots had struck true, and the Cerberus assassin was grievously wounded and couldn't recover in time. Thane jabbed him hard in the gunshot wound, causing Leng to stagger away and flail uselessly with his sword. After that, it was a simple matter to slip behind him. Two hands on the human's head, one quick snap, and Leng fell silently to the ground. Dead.

Other Cerberus agents came at him, but in this moment he was Amonkira come to life. He moved with a speed he couldn't recall even in his youth. Logically, he knew it was the upgrades from the Lazarus project, the same technology that had given Shepard her enhanced speed and strength, but to actually experience it was incredible. He danced around the agents as if they were moving in slow motion. One after the other they fell to his weapon or his hands. They tried to circle him and reach Shepard, but he refused to let them near her. He would defend her to his last breath, and right now that meant killing their enemies as quickly as possible.

He danced away from a high powered sniper shot. As he followed the line of sight back to the sniper, he saw Sokje pull the shooter back into the shadows. Grunt and Garrus fell in around Shepard, protecting their fallen leader, and leaving him free to become the dealer of death that he truly was, a master of hand to hand who wrought absolute devastation among his beloved's enemies.

The last enemy in front of him dropped at his feet, freeing him to return to Shepard's side. A quick glance around the room revealed that Sokje's security force had arrived and was helping Shepard's crew. Garrus had already removed her helmet, and his heart clenched at how pale and still she was. He couldn't bring himself to ask the obvious question as he knelt beside her and took her hand.

"Move!" Miranda shoved Grunt out of the way. "Chakwas is on her way. Help me get her prepped. Garrus, unbuckle her armor," she ordered as she undid the catches on her side with trembling fingers.

Thane was barely aware of Garrus ordering Grunt and others to go meet Chakwas. Instead, he placed a hand on Shepard's cheek and leaned close to her. "Shepard. Siha, open your eyes. I'm here. I swore I would return to your side, and I have. Shepard!"

 _Please_ , he begged Kalahira.  _Please don't take her away from me. Not now!_

Her eyes fluttered open, and he smiled as he caressed her cheek with the softest touch. "Thane?" It was the barest whisper, but he smiled again and leaned in to brush his lips against hers.

"I'm here," he reassured her. Across from him, Miranda gently placed a medipack on her abdomen, then rolled her slightly to put one on her back to cover the exit wound. There was more grey than blue in her eyes. All the color seemed to be leaching from her along with her blood.

"Glad you met me," she whispered and tried to smile.

Cold fear twisted his gut into knots as he realized she thought she was dead. If that were the case, she wouldn't fight the siren call of the ocean. She could so easily slip away from him. "No, Shepard," he said more harshly than he meant. "I'm not dead, and neither are you. You're injured, but alive. You have to fight to stay alive. Stay with me!"

A faint look of confusion came over her face. Her lips moved to form a question but nothing came out. "Fight, siha! I'm not across the sea. I'm right here, with you on the Citadel! Don't give up on me, Shepard. I did not survive impossible odds to return to your side just to have you leave me alone in this life!" He stripped her gauntlet off so that he could hold her hand, touch her flesh instead of armor. "Please, siha, don't leave me alone again," he begged.

Her fingers spasmed against his, sending a spike of adrenaline through him as he feared the worst. Then he realized she was trying to squeeze his hand in return. "Love you," she mouthed, the sounds not audible even though he was so close to her.

"No, Shepard," he said urgently as he gripped her hand so tightly he felt the little bones shift under his fingers. "Listen to me. I love you. I need you. I need you to fight for me. You made me promise you. I fought through darkness and fire to return to your side. Now I'm claiming my payment. You  _will live_. Do you understand me?" He was so afraid. The gods were toying with him, and if he weren't so desperate for their aid, he would curse them for what they were putting him through.

Silently, he prayed for Arashu to leave her siha here, for her work was unfinished. He felt selfish hoping that the goddess would spare her siha for her work, when in reality he only wanted her to live for his sake. But he was afraid to pray for his own wishes. He was a sinner many times over. What reason would Arashu have to answer his own greedy prayers? So he prayed on behalf of the billions who would be exterminated if the Reapers won. Surely this was why Arashu had brought Shepard back from the sea, was it not?

He held her gaze as he prayed to his gods to spare his love. Slowly, deliberately, she nodded. It was the smallest of gestures, but its meaning was clear. She knew where she was. She would not embrace the sea. Choking back a sob, he bent over her and pressed his cheek to hers. "Hold on, siha. Help is coming."

Just then, Chakwas appeared at Miranda's side. "Move," she said, all business. Her hands were busy with medicines and bandages, and two of the Normandy's crew ran up with a stretcher. He held her hand as they carried her as quickly as they could toward the exit. "Kolyat!" he said abruptly as they passed near him. Kasumi appeared at his side. "Go on. I'll watch over your son." He nodded his thanks to his friend. In spite of his worry over Kolyat's condition, Shepard was far worse off, and he couldn't bring himself to leave her side, even for his son.

He caught only glimpses of the after action as he hurried forward with Shepard. He was surprised that Garrus wasn't by Shepard's side, but when he glanced back, he saw the familiar blue armor kneeling on the ground. His shoulders were bowed in a posture of grief, but before Thane could make out more details, a muscular human blocked his line of sight.

"Doc, I can help," the man said. "We've got the same blood type."

Chakwas didn't look up from Shepard as she answered. "You're bleeding too much as it is, James. I've already called Huerta and they've prepped an operating room. We just have to keep her alive until we get there." Thane heard the naked worry in the doctor's voice. Shepard was in danger, and he willed them to move faster.

The trip down the stairwell to the Presidium level took forever, and Thane sighed in relief as he saw the ambulance waiting for them. He refused to let himself be separated from her and squeezed in ahead of Chakwas, still holding Shepard's hand. Miranda slid in at the last second, making it even more crowded. "You need me," she told Chakwas.

"She'll need all the help we can give her," was the doctor's response. She finally spared Thane a glance. "I don't know where you came from, but I'm glad you're here now, Thane. You can tell me all about it later."

He watched the doctor's hands move with surety, in spite of the fact that they were covered in his beloved's blood. More blood dripped onto the floor of the ambulance despite the bandages and medi gel that swathed Shepard's body. He blocked out the quiet conversation between Miranda and Chakwas and concentrated only on Shepard's limp hand in his. Every so often, her eyes would flutter open, and she sought his face. He smiled reassuringly, but he couldn't tell if she was able to take any comfort from it before unconsciousness claimed her again.

He held fast to Shepard's hand until they took her into the operating suite and left him behind with only his fears and prayers to occupy him in equal measure.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to Orchidellia, my wonderful beta reader.


	53. Sublime Union

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thane and Shepard are reunited.

The waiting room was aptly named. Nothing moved. There were no windows, and the overhead light was obstinately unchanging. The doors stayed closed, hiding Shepard's fate. Thane couldn't decide if he wanted them to open or not. A wound like that would take time to repair, so an early appearance by the doctor would be an ominous sign. And yet time dragged on in infuriating slowness.

Finally Thane forced himself to move. He needed to find out what had happened to his son. Rounding the corner, he saw Hama sitting forlornly in one of the ubiquitous hard plastic chairs scattered throughout the hospital. Grief and gratitude both twisted up inside of him on her account.

He walked to her side and waited. It took a moment before she looked up at him. Exhaustion clung to her as thickly as the scent of battle. She slowly drew herself up to stand erect in front of him, but he could detect her nervousness. " _Elarin, shamesh'ta,_ " she said.

" _Shamesh'ta?_ " The formal greeting to a mate's parent.

"Not how we wanted to tell you," she admitted as he urged her to sit back down before she fell down and then took the seat next to her.

"It appears a great many things have changed since I left the Citadel," he said. "Have you formally pledged to each other then?"

She shook her head and stared unseeing at the opposite wall. "He wanted to wait. He said Shepard was convinced you were still alive, so he wanted to wait until you could be there."

He bowed his head at the immensity of emotion that swept through him at Hama's simple explanation. Her sparse words conveyed so much of his son's feelings and intentions that Thane was momentarily overwhelmed. "How is he?" he asked when he could speak calmly.

She shrugged, a tiny movement as if all other energy had been drained under the harsh lighting and post-battle fatigue. "I haven't heard anything since we brought him in."

More waiting, he thought. He had been taught patience, had it drilled into him until it was an essential part of his nature. Never before had it been so hard to wait. He glanced over at the young woman his son had chosen as a mate, and saw someone in as much suffering as him. Offering comfort and physical touch were still foreign to his nature, in spite of his time with both Irikah and Shepard, but for his son's mate he would make the effort. Wordlessly he held out his hand.

With a grateful smile, she grabbed onto it and held tight. They sat, side by side, and waited.

* * *

_She'll live. Those two simple words from Miranda released the tension in his chest that had been strangling him far worse than Keprel's ever had since he had seen her fall in battle. He thanked Kalahira and Arashu for their mercy as he followed Miranda to Shepard's room._

That had been yesterday. He had stayed in Shepard's room almost constantly, leaving only briefly to check on Kolyat. Sleep had come in the form of brief naps in the uncomfortable chair stuck like an afterthought to the side of the room.

He watched her as she lay motionless on the hospital bed with monitors and tubes anchoring her to life. Her chest rose and fell slowly, and the heart monitor beeped in a reassuringly steady rhythm. He had thought of so many scenarios for their reunion in the last few days, of the  _Normandy_ returning to Sur'Kesh or of surprising her at the Citadel. Seeing her like this, unconscious and pale from her brush with death, hadn't been on the list.

Hours crept slowly by, and one by one, the crew of the  _Normandy_ made their way to her room. Some only stopped long enough to confirm that she was alive. Some, like James, were the walking wounded but refused to rest without checking on their leader. Kasumi brought him dinner and stayed to chat. When Garrus came by, Thane left to visit his son. The pain medicine put Kolyat in a state of perpetual now with no ability to remember what was happening, so their conversation consisted solely of Thane repeating his greeting a dozen times and Kolyat being astonished at his father's reappearance over and over before he finally left Kolyat in Hama's capable care.

Returning to Shepard's room, he decided to take advantage of the quiet to do some of his exercises. He folded up his coat and laid it over the chair. The room was small, but he simply adapted his movements to fit the space. He had worked his way through about half of his  _takats_ when he glanced at the hospital bed and saw Shepard watching him through half-open eyes. Joy shot through him. Instantly, he was at her side and carefully gathered up her hand. "You're awake," he said, his relief too great to care that he was stating the obvious.

"Thane?" Her voice and hand both trembled as she tried to reach up and touch his face. "You're alive?"

"Yes, siha," he returned gravely. "I swore to you that I would return to your side, and I have done so.

"I thought you were dead," she whispered as tears began to gather in the corner of her eyes.

Gently, as if she were made from spun glass, he pressed her fingers to his lips. "I am alive, and so are you, my beloved siha." He watched as the pieces returned to her memory, a process he was recently and intimately familiar with.

"I thought I was dead and you were meeting me across the sea. You saved me," she said with a look of wonderment in her eyes.

"You saved me long ago," he replied. Suddenly he couldn't bear to be apart from her by even a fraction of space. Carefully, he slid his arm underneath her and pulled her close to him. She cupped his face in her hands and pulled him down for a kiss that went on for an eternity. He remembered with exquisite detail every kiss they had ever shared, and none could match the intensity of this one, with both convinced the other would die and needing desperately to reassure themselves of the living truth.

He threaded his fingers through her hair, and even though they caught in the tangles, she only moaned louder into his mouth. His other hand wrapped around her back and pulled her tight against him, heedless of the various wires and monitors attached to her. He was vaguely aware that the steady beeping sound had trailed off into a steady tone, but by far the majority of his attention was focused on her warm and pliable body next to his. His only concern was how tightly he could hold her given the extent of her injuries.

So when the door to her room flew open and Miranda came running in, he barely noticed. It wasn't until she spoke that he even bothered to spare her any attention. "Oh for the love of..." The annoying tone switched off suddenly as Miranda did something to the monitoring equipment. "I should have known," she said in exasperation. "Do you realize you scared the entire medical staff when your heart monitor flat-lined?" she scolded.

Shepard's only response was to reach one arm behind her and extend her middle finger straight up in the air as she kept kissing him. Thane laughed against her lips at her crude human gesture. Neither of them stopped kissing as Miranda stopped by the door and said, "Fine. You're responsible for her, Thane."

He didn't mind. He would happily be responsible for her safety for the rest of his life, and now he actually had a chance at a long life. They still had to deal with the Reapers, but in this moment, that felt like an easy challenge compared to what they had already gone through. For now, his siha was safe and alive in his arms, and he didn't intend to let her go.

The sedatives were still coursing through her system, and too soon she had to break the kiss to lean against his shoulder. She tugged feebly at his vest. "Lie down with me."

He helped her shift to the side before he eased in next to her. The hospital bed was narrow, but they didn't care. Her toes stroked along his calves and she smiled sleepily. "I thought I told you no boots in my bed."

He nuzzled against her temple, dropping small, light kisses on her fevered skin. Smiling, he responded, "Technically this isn't your bed."

She made a rude noise as she stroked her hand over his chest. "Fine, but when we get back to the  _Normandy_ , I expect you to be fully naked in my bed."

"You first," he teased in return.

They settled down, content to simply hold each other and touch as much as possible. Her head was resting on his chest, and he was stroking her hair. "Breathe for me," she whispered.

Knowing what she wanted, he took a slow, deep breath. The pain was nearly gone with only the slightest twinge at the end when he filled his lungs. He held it for a few seconds and then slowly let it out. He could breathe normally again, as he hadn't been able to in years. There was no more crackling in his lungs, no stuttering or hesitation that presaged a coughing fit, only the smooth slide of air entering and exiting his chest. He breathed deeply again watching her head on his chest rise and fall.

She hugged him fiercely, although it was but a shadow of her usual strength. Her eyes were closed, the better to hear, and a beatific smile graced her lips. "That sounds heavenly."

His fingers brushed against the side of her neck and lingered over her pulse. It beat slow and steady under his fingertips, and he smiled into her hair. "So does this," he said. He settled her carefully against him, mindful of her bandages and injuries. "Sleep, siha," he whispered in her ear. "Sleep, and I will watch over you."

She didn't argue. Instead, she yawned hugely and wriggled against him to find the perfect place to rest. "'Kay," she murmured. "You can tell me all about it tomorrow. I just wanna sleep with you again." She was out almost instantly.

She fit against him perfectly, his missing half. A sense of peace and grace stole over him as she relaxed bonelessly against him in sleep. He brushed his lips over her hair and basked in her warmth soaking into him. It was nearly the same as after they defeated the Collectors, but now without the sense of his impending death hanging over them, he was free to feel hopeful for the first time in years. Even the Reaper threat couldn't dampen his joy in this moment.

He brushed her hair back from her face. She was his siha, although to be honest, he had to admit that she belonged to the galaxy. Even now, the smells of battle - gunfire, eezo, medi gel, and blood - lingered about her, but she wouldn't be Shepard without it. She was a warrior angel in every conceivable sense of the word, and he was blessed beyond belief that he was the one she turned to. He was a sinner, entrusted with one siha whom he had failed, and yet it was that singular failure that had set him on the path to meet Shepard. There was no mistaking the handiwork of the gods here.

Now with his angel in his arms, safe for the moment, he was overcome by the immensity of the events they had both survived. Tears slid from his eyes as he wept silently, but it wasn't grief, or at least not solely. He wept for his lost Irikah and for the fact that his son had grown up without his parents, and yet thanks to Shepard, Kolyat had been given a second chance much as he had been. Irikah lived in his memories, but thanks to the gods he had Shepard and Kolyat alive in his life now. While he could never completely forgive himself for his tragic failures, he finally felt a measure of peace with his past.

He dropped a tender kiss on her brow. "Thank you," he whispered to all the gods of Earth and Rakhana.

* * *

For Shepard, the next few days were brief windows of emotional highs and lows interspersed with drugged unconsciousness. Some things were a warm, sustaining truth: Thane was alive and by her side.

Others had an unyielding, over-bright quality: Tali's death was sharp and blinding in its intensity. It hurt her to see Garrus' bright blue eyes dimmed in grief.

She had snippets of memories of watching the funeral service for those who had fallen in the coup attempt and crying for Bailey and all the others.

But those moments of clear memories and emotions were few and far between at first. She suspected Miranda was purposefully sedating her to keep her quiet. She had things to do, plans to make, people to see, but then pain or exhaustion would take over and she'd lose hours. When she snapped at Thane and accused him of aiding Miranda and keeping her in the hospital, he only deflected her angry words with soft kisses and touches that made her forget her anger, and then she'd fall asleep again.

Gradually she slept less and became aware of the world around her for more than a few minutes at a time. Miranda stopped hovering, and Thane felt comfortable enough to leave her for short periods to attend his own personal business, although he never left unless someone else was present to keep her company. When she questioned him on his vigilance, he remarked that he had been entrusted with her safety and refused to fail again.

When she woke from yet another drug-induced nap, she was surprised to see Garrus sitting, or more accurately snoring, in the visitor's chair.

"Hey, big guy," she whispered hoarsely.

In spite of his obvious exhaustion, he was still primed for battle and woke up instantly. His blue eyes locked with hers and he came to stand next to her bed. "Hey, yourself," he said quietly as his eyes flickered over the medical readouts.

"I'm not in danger of dying anymore, Garrus." He flinched, and logic and memory gates made belated connections in her sedative-addled mind. "Sorry," she said as she reached out for his hand. She tried to convey her grief for Tali and sympathy for him, as well as her own brush with death in a single word, because she didn't feel capable of expressing all that verbally yet.

His hand latched onto hers as he tried to smile. "You'll have to forgive us if we're a little nervous about you right now. It was touch and go for a while, Shepard," he told her.

"I'll try not to do it again," she promised.

"I'm holding you to that," he said fervently. "And I'm not the only one."

"Thane? Where is he?" Just the thought of him brought a smile to her face.

"If he hasn't been at your side, he's been checking on Kolyat. Kid's had it rough." Sensing her curiosity, he gave her a few more details. "He'll live, but they're still not sure they can save his leg."

She ached for him and Hama, although she was relieved they had both survived. The decision to take Kolyat and Hama in spite of their inexperience had been painful, but it was part of the cold calculus of war that had forced her hand. She'd once told Thane that she would use every resource available in this war, and she had. She was beyond relieved that at least she hadn't lost his son and hoped he could forgive her for her decision.

Pushing that thought aside for later, she asked, "Retribution?"

He shook his head. "We haven't found any other transmitters. We keep hoping the Keepers will rebuild this one, but they've completely avoided that room since the fight. Hey," he said, tapping her on the nose with his free hand and interrupting her train of thought. "Stop. You don't have to solve it right this instant. Even you are allowed to take some time to recover from a near-death experience."

She closed her eyes and blew out her breath in one long sigh. "That obvious, am I?"

She heard the wry humor in his voice. "I know you pretty damn well. This is what...our third impossible mission together?"

"How you holding up?"

He shrugged. "About as good as you after Sur'Kesh."

"Ouch," she murmured. She covered his hand with her other one. "I'm so sorry, Garrus," she said again. She had mourned Tali's death in odd, drug-free moments that left her disoriented as to time's true flow. Garrus had tried not to speak of his growing relationship with Tali, afraid of hurting her when Thane had been missing, and unwilling to listen to her protestations that she was happy for them. Now their positions were tragically reversed.

He pulled off his visor and handed it to her. It only took a moment for her to spot Tali's name at the bottom of the older list.

Words were inadequate, so she settled for squeezing his hand as hard as she could. "Just don't make me add your name, Shepard," he finally said.

They both knew she couldn't promise that, so she did the only thing she could and stayed silent.

* * *

Shepard paused at the top of the stairs in her cabin. It had taken her quite some time to make it through CIC as every crew member had come up and welcomed her back personally. Not that she minded. She'd missed them as well, and finally being allowing to leave the hospital to return to the  _Normandy_ was one of the happiest moments she'd had lately.

It was eclipsed, however, by the torrent of joy and love she felt as she looked into the room and saw Thane rising to greet her. "When I said I would go on ahead, I had no idea I'd be waiting so long," he teased. "I could have read a book in the time it took you to greet everyone."

She grinned as she stepped down and into his embrace. "What can I say? I'm popular."

"I hope they had their fill, because now your time belongs to me," he murmured in her ear as his hand flattened on the small of her back and pulled her closer.

As quickly as that, the world outside her cabin ceased to have meaning. She had dreamed of this moment for so long - holding him in her arms, feeling the hard musculature of his back shifting underneath her hands, smelling the alien and unique scent that belonged only to her assassin. She might still be recovering, and her abdomen still ached and complained at anything resembling moderate activity, but all that fell to the wayside. Thane was home, and her heart was whole once again.

He swept her up and cradled her against his body. "Thane," she protested with a laugh, "I'm perfectly capable of walking to the bed."

"But it gives me pleasure to hold you, siha," he replied as he strode easily across the room. He followed her down onto the bed and slid to her side, unwilling to put weight on her midsection. "Besides, it is a pleasure that I have gone without for far, far too long."

"There are a few other pleasures I've done without for too long," she said as she turned to her side and slid her hand underneath his shirt.

He captured her hand in his through the thin material. "You are only hours out of the hospital, siha," he admonished.

"And cleared for rehab," she reminded him. "Uh uh," she said as she saw the hesitation in his expression. "Don't you dare make me wait until I'm cleared for duty, Thane Krios. It has been far too long for each of us with too many dark days and dark thoughts. I need you," she whispered.

In truth, he didn't need much convincing. He missed her and needed her in equal measure. He easily gave in. Leaning in, he cupped her face and even though the touch of his lips against hers was soft, there was a heat and urgency in it that spoke of his own burning desire. "I need you as well," he admitted. While he had rarely left her side in the hospital, even going so far as to nap in the bed with her on occasion, she had been too medicated and there had been no privacy for them to do more than indulge in a few tame make out sessions.

She pulled back slightly to look into those dark eyes with a hint of emerald shining in the depths. He picked up on her serious mood and canted his head to the side, encouraging her to speak. "I'm so sorry, Thane. There's so much..." He laid his fingers on her lips to silence her, but she took his hand in hers and shook her head. "No," she said firmly, even though her hand trembled a little. "Just let me say it once."

He held her gaze with his own and nodded once. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I told you once that I would do whatever it took to defeat the Reapers, use any resource, even...even let people die if it would help the greater good." She opened her eyes and saw him watching her with that silent regard that was so much a part of him. He didn't judge, he never had, but then she'd never had anything to confess to him like this before. "On the Citadel, I knew I'd need everything at my disposal to have a chance of beating Cerberus and activating Retribution. It wasn't even a question in my mind, Thane. I took Kolyat and Hama with me, knowing full well they weren't nearly as well trained as the rest of my team and that they could die, but...I needed them. If they could take down even some of the enemy, that would improve our odds overall. I'd made so many choices lately that didn't work. Sur'Kesh. Horizon. Then I had to make another one with even less certainty than I'd had on Horizon, and that blew up in my face. And now Kolyat may lose his leg, and he might have died, and I did that to your son, Thane. I can't even say I'm sorry because I'd do it again."

There. The words were out, but the pressure on her chest didn't ease much. She had a daughter, but Boudicca was an AI and a dreadnought. She was literally born and bred to fight. Kolyat and Thane had been through so much, and she had taken everything they had built from such a fragile foundation over the last year and risked it all.

He simply wrapped his arm around her and pulled her so that they were pressed full length against each other. For a long moment, the only thing he did was play with the hair against the back of her neck. When he spoke, it was contemplative. "Fatherhood was never easy for me. I envied other men I saw who always seemed to know what to say and do. They were comfortable around their families. I loved mine, but I could never entirely leave my background behind. I was always aware of dangers and wanted to protect them. After Irikah died, I thought I was protecting Kolyat by leaving him behind. In my mind, he stayed that same child. When we met again, it was hard for me to grasp that the small child was gone. In a way, he was as dead as Irikah, and I had no idea how to relate to the man who took his place."

She slipped her leg over his, twining their bodies together as he made his own confession. "He is a man now. I ceased having a say in his fate years ago, as I have been informed on multiple occasions, but he is more than capable of making his own decisions. Hama told me that you gave them a choice to be part of your crew or to go somewhere safe to wait out the war. They made their choice, and I would not gainsay either of them. If I had returned to your side and found my son gone to the sea, I would mourn, yes. As much as I did for Irikah, but I would respect his decision as well as yours, siha."

He tipped her chin up so they could see each other. "You shall continue to be the sword that protects the galaxy against any threat. I shall be the shield at your side. Together we can be more than either of us separately can manage. I know you, Shepard. I know your heart and your soul. I know your victories and your losses. I know your hopes and your fears as well as my own. And I swear to you, there is no power in the universe than will take me from your side ever again." He leaned in to seal his vow with a kiss.

She met him halfway and poured herself into his kiss. "I am yours, now and forever, and nothing can stand against us," she vowed. Their kiss ignited a storm of passion between them. Excitement and desire crackled in the air around them. Suddenly she was wearing too many clothes and so was he. "Off," she muttered as she shoved at his light-weight shirt.

For once, he didn't chide her for her impatience. Indeed, he seemed to be in just as much of a hurry. There was a brief flurry and all their clothes were discarded haphazardly around the bed, and they were finally skin to skin with hands eagerly touching and reacquainting themselves with the feel of the other. Lips devoured each other as bodies intertwined.

She could feel the urgency of his desire growing hard and heavy against her thigh. She was just as eager for him, desperate to feel him around her, inside her, against her in every place they could touch. He gently but inexorably pushed her backward and moved so that he was kneeling over her. Lips met in wet and open kisses. Tongues flicked out, caressing, inviting, and promising without words.

Her hands trailed down his back, feeling the rough, pebbly texture of his skin that she had so missed. She dragged her fingers back up, careful not to dislodge his scales. Even in the heat of the moment, he was careful not to put too much weight on her as he laid down between her legs.

He kissed his way down her throat and collarbone to her breasts. Even though she was expecting it, her breath caught in her throat as his lips fastened over the tip of her breast. He was in no mood to make either of them wait tonight, and his hand came up to toy with her other breast.

She was so wet and aching for him. All she could think of was the feel of him against her thigh when they both wanted more. "Please, Thane. No more waiting," she begged.

He nudged against her entrance and then slid inside in one smooth motion. In the same economical movement he straightened up to kiss her and captured the gasp of pure carnal pleasure that fell from her lips. He didn't wait as he usually did before he rolled his hips sending tingles of pleasure and electricity racing through her body and making her moan in delight. She felt so alive, so filled with energy that her body should be glowing. Over and over he moved against her, inside her, sending her higher and higher. This! This was what she had craved. The sublime feeling of their two bodies becoming one, of knowing the other as well as your own self. She could feel the tension in him as easily as she could feel the explosion building up from deep inside. This was no gentle love making. That would come later. For now, it was the reassurance that they were both alive, both strong and vital, and both completely lost in the other.

He moved one hand between them and with that final touch she was lost. Her body arched up off the bed as her legs locked tight behind him, trapping him against her. It was an earthquake that spread out from her center and caused her entire body to clench and shake, and she clung to him like a woman drowning. She cried out in pleasure until he captured her lips in a searing kiss as he locked her body against his and followed her over. The feeling of him pulsing deep inside her only prolonged her pleasure.

She reveled in the afterglow, feeling the little ripples that still radiated out from their point of union. Thane's body caged her in with his elbows on the bed around her, and she loved it. He was home. They were alive and for now that was all that mattered. For the longest moment, they simply rested in each other's arms, bodies pressed close and cheek to cheek. Time moved on apace, though, and eventually he slid to the side and cradled her against him. "I have missed you, my siha," he whispered against her skin.

"No more separation," she declared to the ceiling and the universe at large. "I'm never letting you go again, Thane Krios."

His arms tightened around her in silent agreement, and they simply lay there, enjoying the nearness of each other after so long apart.

She idly traced the lines of his markings on his chest. "I forgot," she admitted contritely as she glanced up. At his questioning look, she clarified. "I forgot some of how you look. This set of freckles," she says as she leaned in and licked that spot on his chest. "How far down this goes." Another lick to the velvety red ribbing at the front of his neck that brought out a rumble of appreciation and lust.

"You didn't forget everything, I trust?"

There was a mischievous glint in her eyes as she answered. "How can I remember if I forgot something? I can't prove a negative."

He hrmed and pretended to consider as his hand skated down her stomach and did wicked things to the inside of her thighs. "I suppose that I shall have to remind you, then."

She moaned her whole-hearted agreement as he shifted and kissed his way down her breastbone. He detoured to kiss the scar from the sword thrust that had so nearly claimed her life, still angry, red and raised. She squirmed uncomfortably and moved her hand to cover the scar.

He intercepted her hand and kissed her stomach again. "No, siha. Never be ashamed of your scars. They are the mark of my warrior angel, and I would not change a thing about her." He continued to nuzzle at her midsection as his fingers caressed and teased. He clearly remembered all her favorite spots and seemed determined to prove it to her. In spite of the fact that she had so recently climaxed underneath him, it was only a matter of moments before she was crying out and convulsing around his fingers once again.

He brought her down slowly, but didn't stop kissing or caressing her. She tried to curl forward to reach out to him, but groaned in pain as her abdomen spasmed in protest. Without moving from between her legs, he reached up and pressed down on her stomach to push her back to the bed. "Stay put," he warned with a delicate lick on over-sensitive flesh.

"Thane," she groaned.

His voice was entirely too self-satisfied and teasing. "No, siha. I was entrusted with your care and told to make sure you rested. I think the best way to ensure that is to make sure you are too satiated to leave this bed." His fingers moved inside her again until she was unsure if it was his words or his motions that caused her to gasp and burn with desire all over again.

"You have an unfair advantage," she muttered.

He laughed darkly as his fingers continued to stroke and explore. "We have been apart for too long, if you've forgotten that I was not raised with any concept of right or wrong. There is only the objective and how I choose to accomplish it. My objective tonight is to ensure you stay in this bed and get plenty of sleep. I choose to accomplish this by lavishing pleasure upon pleasure on you until you can no longer muster the energy to even think of leaving our bed."

The way he claimed the bed as theirs brought another shiver to her, one that he was quick to exploit and build upon. "I'm gonna die," she groaned, but whether in frustration or delight, she wasn't sure.

"You've survived this long, siha. I promise, you will survive tonight." The way his lips moved over her most intimate flesh made her doubt his promise. "This and all the others to come."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Orchidellia, my beta reader, for helping me stay on track and giving me great feedback and ideas.


	54. The Calm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kolyat makes plans for after the Reaper War that could put his father in danger. Shepard runs into old friends.

Kolyat growled and pounded his fist against the armrest on his wheelchair. The pain from his leg was intensifying again into a throbbing so strong that it made his teeth ache. The doctor had offered him pain killers, but he reacted badly to them. They interfered with his short term memory so much that he couldn't keep track of anything, and he hated that feeling of disconnection. So he struggled to get by with the less effective pain killers and followed the news to try and take his mind off the pain.

The Citadel was making good progress at getting things back to normal after the coup attempt by Cerberus. Even though he had been in the middle of the action and it felt like a major battle, the actual terrorist activity had been largely confined to the Presidium, and aside from a few C-sec offices, the Wards had been untouched. C-sec had been hit hard, though. There had been talk of recruiting police forces from colonies still untouched by the Reapers to fill in the gaps. There was also a rumor that one of Shepard's buddies had offered to bring in the Blue Suns as a temporary police force, but from what Kolyat could see, that wasn't getting a warm reception from the remaining C-sec administration.

Kahje wasn't doing much better. The Reapers still hadn't attacked there, and no one knew why. Kolyat's own theory was that even the Reapers didn't want to bother with an aquatic species as crazy as the hanar. But that didn't mean Kahje was peaceful. Milar and her allies had outed the Oligetti hanar who were under the Reapers' indoctrination, but it had been too late for a peaceful resolution. The Oligetti had taken over key military and defensive locations, and civil war was raging unchecked. The drell had mostly taken the side of the Arpetti, but most of the fighting was taking place underwater. Several of the domes had gone silent, and the drell who had been inside were missing and feared dead. Hama hadn't heard from her mother in over a week and was getting more and more worried with each passing day.

His leg throbbed again, and he was developing a migraine to go along with it. He scowled at his leg, propped up in front of him and encased in a cage with numerous pins sticking through the mangled flesh to try and hold the bone fragments in place so they could heal. The doctor had warned him that even if it did heal, he might never be able to walk on it again without pain and that he might want to consider a prosthetic. There was a light blanket covering his leg now. He had taken one look at it when the doctor was changing the dressing, and that single look had been enough to send his stomach heaving even though there had been nothing to bring up.

Fortunately, Hama had a stronger stomach than he did and pestered the doctor with numerous questions every time she came in to check on his leg. Kolyat was thankful for that, since it meant he could ignore everyone and everything. Right now it seemed that every time he opened his mouth, all he could do was snarl and snap at everyone, no matter how well meaning they were, even Hama. Last night he had forced himself to swallow his pride and whispered an apology to her. She simply kissed him and caught him up on news of their friends they hadn't seen since they left for the  _Normandy_.

There was a light knock on the door. Kolyat glanced over and saw his father standing there. He scowled again before he could catch it, then gestured for him to enter. "Sorry," he offered as he turned his wheelchair around in the small space. "Not feeling so great right now."

Thane nodded politely. "I understand, and you need not feel obliged to put on a cheerful front for me, Kolyat. Any change in your prognosis?"

Kolyat shook his head. "Doctor said it would take at least another week to see if the bones will settle back into place."

Thane sat at the foot of Kolyat's hospital bed. "I will pray for your full recovery, and I also wanted to tell you that I am proud of you, son. I know how dangerous it was for you, and yet you did not falter."

Kolyat ducked his head in embarrassment. "I was scared to death. And then I got blown up. Don't know how much there is to be proud of."

"The definition of bravery is facing your fear and doing what you must in order to protect others. I knew you were brave."

His lips twitched as he took in his father's words, but he didn't want to dwell on them. "How's Shepard?" he asked to change the subject.

He didn't miss the way his father's face lit up, and realized belatedly that he was actually happy for their relationship. "She's back on the  _Normandy_. She's recovering quite well."

Thane paused and Kolyat filled in the gap. "You're leaving, aren't you?"

Some of the joy left Thane's expression. "In the morning. Shepard is headed to Omega to plan the next attack with the fleet."

"And you're going with her." It wasn't a question.

His father nodded once. "I swore I would not leave her side. I will finish this fight with her, Kolyat, no matter what may happen."

Kolyat tried very hard to keep his voice level and his subvocals from giving away his pain, but he doubted he was entirely successful. "I just got you back," he said. His father had tried to harden him to the likelihood that he would not survive Mordin's experimental intervention, and now that he had, the war was taking him away again.

"I know, Kolyat, and I am sorry." Thane paused, then smiled although it was tinged with melancholy. "You don't need it, but you have my blessing for your union with Hama. Your mother would have liked her. I have confidence in you, Kolyat. You are brave and intelligent and honest. You will be a much better husband and father than I ever was." There was no recrimination or guilt there, simply a statement of fact. "You do not need me any longer."

"I do!" The words escaped before he could choke them back, but once they were, he decided he might as well go for broke. "I missed you so much, dad. I missed you when mom was still alive, and I missed you even more after she died. It turned into anger, but now I know why you did what you did, and I forgive you. I just... I don't want to lose you again."

"Kolyat." In an instant, Thane was by his side and holding him close as he hadn't since he was a kid. And just for a moment, Kolyat allowed himself to sink back into those memories even as he held his father and knew that he was heading off yet again. He forced himself to let go and smiled up at his father. And if his vision was watery and his smile was trembling, well, he just didn't care anymore.

"Come back home, dad."

"I will, son." His father let go and took a step toward the door, obviously preparing to leave.

"Wait," Kolyat blurted out. "There's something I need to tell you. It's..." How did he tell his father that he was prepared to give away all his secrets? He felt Thane's steady gaze on him and steeled himself. "Milar gave me data. From the Compact. All of it." He looked up to see if his father understood what he was trying to say.

"You know it all then?" He didn't seem upset.

Kolyat nodded. "Not just your history. All of your assignments. All the assignments the hanar ever gave out - assassinations, spying, sabotage. All of it back to the beginning of the Compact."

That finally seemed to rock Thane back on his heels. He blinked rapidly before he asked, "What do you intend to do with it?"

"Nothing unless...until the Reapers are defeated," he said slowly.

"And then?"

Kolyat stared at the floor. This was his chance to do what he and Hama had schemed and planned for so long even though they'd had no real sense of ever accomplishing anything of lasting effect. He still wasn't entirely sure why Milar had given him this data and the opportunity that came with it, but he had his suspicions. It seemed like everything in his life had pointed him in this direction, but he had an obligation to warn his father before he took that last step. Lifting his gaze from the floor, he studied his father. Thane stood there, poised, calm, and unassuming. All designed to make him seem non-threatening, to make others overlook the deadly weapon that hid in their very midst. His father was a collection of secrets that sprang from an entire culture of shadows and secrets, and Kolyat couldn't abide them any longer. He cared for his father, but not what he represented, and he couldn't let this chance pass by. "I'm releasing it. All of it. The hanar have no right to control our people the way they have been."

Something twisted over his father's features, sadness perhaps, but he said nothing.

"You don't agree?"

Thane took his time preparing his words. "My perspective is vastly different than yours, Kolyat. The Compact was my life and my family. It was my honor to serve. I still cannot find it in me to be upset, no matter what you or Shepard might say or think. I think you will find my beliefs are shared by all in the Compact."

"But it's not right!" Kolyat threw out the words aggressively.

Thane simply shrugged. "Right and wrong are fluid concepts, malleable over time and circumstance." He held up a hand to forestall Kolyat from further arguments. "Regardless, the data, and therefore the decision, were not entrusted to me. It was given to you, Kolyat. You must do what you feel is right. All I ask is that you consider the effect it will have on those who share my upbringing. You know I consider them family."

All Kolyat had wanted to do was warn his father. He didn't want anything else to happen to Thane and now he felt responsible for the fate of hundreds more just like his father and Milar. His concern must have shown in his face.

"Kolyat, do not worry about me. After all I have been through in my life, I do not think some negative publicity will affect me."

It was with difficulty that Kolyat kept the aggravation out of his voice. "It's more than that. Milar redacted all the drell names, but anyone associated with the Compact will be suspect. Especially you, with your association with Shepard. You won't be able to keep up the pretense of just being a security specialist."

His father actually had the nerve to smile at him. "You underestimate us, Kolyat. Do as your heart directs. With the gods' blessings, I will return to you, and we can discuss it then. Goodbye, son."

And just like that, his father was gone again. He wanted to throw something, to rage and act out like he had when he was a child, but he ruthlessly quelled those impulses. He was an adult now. No one was keeping secrets from him, and if he had been in his father's place, he would have done the same thing.

Hama slipped in a moment later and took in his dejected posture. "It'll be alright," she crooned as she sat on his uninjured leg and wrapped her arms around him.

His arms came up to circle her and hold her tight. "I hope so, Hama." His mind wandered back to the last thing his father had said:  _You underestimate us._  He'd thought his father meant those in the Compact, but he wondered if Thane had meant all their people. He tucked his chin against her shoulder and kissed her neck. "He's gone, but we have our own work to do now."

* * *

Omega was more crowded than Shepard had ever seen it before, and there was a sense of urgency that permeated every activity on the station. Even if most residents didn't know exactly what was going on, the buildup of ships and troops was unmistakable. The embargo on outgoing communication was the final giveaway.

"Shepard, you stupid bitch!" She recognized the voice immediately and was grinning ear to ear as she turned around.

"I love you, too, Jack!" The former inmate's appearance was different, but nothing could ever truly alter her nature. Her hair was growing out in a wide Mohawk, and she was wearing slightly more clothing than she had on the  _Normandy_ , but the tattoos and attitude hadn't changed one bit.

"Godamnit! I told you not to trust Cerberus!" The tattooed woman was scowling as she shoved through the crowd to reach Shepard, and she looked angry enough to actually punch her, but a glance at Thane by her side persuaded her otherwise.

"I know, I know," Shepard said, holding her hands up in a futile attempt to placate Jack. "Believe me, you're not the first to say that to me," she said sourly. Then she turned a spotlight smile on Jack. "But since you're here, how about a hug?"

Jack made a disgusted sound that soon changed to a look of alarm as she raised her hands and backed away when Shepard advanced to make good on her word. Unfortunately she ran into Samara who was standing just behind her. The Justicar didn't actually smile, but there was a hint of amusement on her face as she blocked Jack's escape route. "Get off me, you touchy-feely asshole!"

Shepard laughed as she released Jack and swept the Justicar into a surprised hug. "Awww, just like old times."

"Not like old times," Jack muttered rebelliously. "See how you're not plastered against the wall for that?"

Shepard grinned as she glanced at the asari. "Samara has apparently been good for you." She gestured for Jack and Samara to join them as they walked down the street. "You're late, you know. You said you'd meet up with me before the Reapers came."

Jack shrugged and glanced at Samara walking serenely by her side as if she didn't have a care in the world. "Yeah, well, we got busy. Were training the asari huntresses in everything we learned about Reaper troops from the Collector Base. Didn't seem right to leave them half-trained when you were tearing it up so spectacularly."

"Sounds like it was for a good cause, so I can't complain," Shepard agreed. "Besides, you're just in time for the big finale. At least, if our projections are right, we'll be going after the Illusive Man and the Reapers at the same time. You game?"

It really wasn't fair for Shepard to dangle that out there in front of Jack, and they all knew it. Jack shot her a glare that said plain as day that she knew exactly what Shepard was doing, and it didn't matter one bit. "Hell, yes. You even think about leaving me out when you go after that bastard, I'll rip your damn arm off and beat you to death with it."

Thane cleared his throat and managed to insert himself between Shepard and Jack as he looked down on the biotic. "I suggest you reconsider your words, Jack."

"Shepard can take care of herself, Thane." She caught sight of Shepard's face and cackled. "Something happened, didn't it?"

Shepard was actually embarrassed as she admitted as much to Jack. "Was on the wrong end of a sword, but I survived and he didn't. So it's all in the past."

Jack shot a knowing glance at Thane and shook her head. "Not as much as you think, Shepard."

Samara placed a quieting hand on the younger biotic's shoulder and interceded. "Where are you going, Shepard?"

She was thankful for the change in topic. "Headed to practice with a couple friends of mine to test my recovery. Thane wanted to test his new moves out, too."

"Oh?" They spent the rest of the walk filling Jack and Samara in on the tumultuous events of the past several months. Before they had finished the story, they were at the new practice gym on the troop training level. Shepard grinned like a fiend as she yelled out to Endo and Rina and jogged off to meet them. Jack trailed along and demanded to be introduced.

Thane and Samara hung back and watched the bedlam unfold in front of them as Shepard swept Jack up into her old friendships. He glanced over and saw Samara smiling fondly at the scene. "You two appear to have grown quite close since we last saw each other."

The asari didn't deny it. "She brings an exuberance for life that I find quite fulfilling after all that has happened over the last few hundred years. She has been a very bright spot in a very long dark."

He felt a kindred spirit with the Justicar. "I believe I understand how you feel. I am happy for you both." Just then, Shepard yelled his name and waved for him to come join them. "Pardon me. I am being summoned," he said with a smile he didn't bother to suppress.

As he joined the group of humans on the floor, Shepard was already making plans and giving orders, although her compatriots were shooting them down in good-natured ribbing. "Hey, Thane," she said with an irrepressible grin. "Jack and Samara are going to join us in our sparring practice."

Thane glanced at Samara with one raised eyebrow ridge but she just nodded back, even though it had to have been as much a surprise to her as to him. So all he said was, "As you wish, siha. It has been a while since I practiced against a skilled biotic opponent."

"Hey, what am I?" she asked in mock outrage.

"A whirlwind of destruction and unexpected surprises, siha," was his answer, which easily placated her. But then, she was in too good of a mood to let anything truly bother her today. In a few short minutes, they were paired off: Shepard and Thane, Endo and Jack, and Rina and Samara.

They started slowly to warm up, and she was pleased with how easily she was moving. The stitches were several days gone, but finally the skin and muscles underneath weren't pulling painfully as she shifted to avoid Thane's attacks. Gradually, she pushed them both faster, but Thane was staying back, forcing her to chase after him and obviously avoiding any aggressive attacks on her. Finally she'd had enough.

"Stop it, Thane. I know what you're doing. Stop treating me like an invalid." Her indignation was somewhat spoiled by the fact that she was breathing hard and he barely looked winded.

He started to shake his head, but she cut him off. "Uh uh. I know you got the Lazarus treatment same as me. I want to see what it did to you."

His initial response was a skeptical look. "Are you sure, Shepard?"

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. "I wouldn't tell you if I wasn't."

His expression morphed into something that was too nice to be called evil, but not by much. "Very well," he said as he gestured for her to step up.

The next thing she knew, she was staring up at the ceiling, wheezing from the force of impact with the ground. Thane held out his hand, grinning at her. Again they reset, and this time, she managed to get in a kick and a jab before he had an arm around her throat and jerked her backward into his chest. He let her go, and she suffered several more embarrassingly quick takedowns while barely getting in any offensive moves against the assassin.

After one particularly hard fall, she just lay on the ground for a moment to get her breath back. Endo came over to offer her a hand up, and she realized everyone had stopped to watch her and Thane. Well, probably just Thane, she amended to herself as she caught Rina's appreciative expression.

"Hey, I'm less than two weeks out from getting run through with a sword. Cut me a break," she said defensively as she rubbed the back of her head.

"I don't think it's you, Shepard," Endo said with a slightly awed look at Thane. To the drell, he asked, "Care to take on tougher odds than one beat up sentinel?"

Thane looked intrigued. "What are you proposing?"

Endo gestured between himself and Rina. "Two on one."

The assassin smirked. "Is that all?"

Endo looked skeptical, but before he could say anything, Jack spoke up. "Hell, if you're feeling your oats, drell, how about me and Samara, too?"

Thane nodded with his enigmatic smile firmly in place. "That would be an acceptable trial."

"What about me?" Shepard asked plaintively, but Jack waved her off. "You had your chance, Shepard. You obviously still need your beauty rest." Shepard snorted rudely but headed to the side to watch. She had to admit that she was more than a little curious to see if Thane could actually take on two N7s and two powerful biotics all by himself.

Thane tucked his hands behind his back and regarded Endo with the same calm and appraising look he frequently used on her. "I would not like to injure anyone. Would you agree that if I can knock you to the ground, it counts as a win for me and you stay down?"

Endo and Rina looked at each other and nodded. That wasn't unusual for the circumstances. It didn't take long for Jack and Samara to agree as well. In another minute, Thane was waiting at the center of a square with his four opponents surrounding him.

Samara and Jack had obviously been working as a team for quite some time. They both threw biotic attacks that spread out in a concerted attempt to knock Thane down, but he jumped in the air and threaded the needle of their attack. His landing put him close to Samara, and she preemptively wrapped a barrier around herself. Thane cast a biotic warp that collapsed her barrier just before he slid in next to the Justicar.

Samara was nearly a thousand years old and had been a warrior for many centuries. She knew how to block just about anything coming toward her. What she couldn't manage was to move at Thane's blinding speed. She blocked more than Shepard had managed, but before the others could close on them, Thane grabbed hold of the asari's arm and flipped her face first onto the ground.

"I'll destroy you!" Jack yelled as she launched another shockwave in Thane's direction. Belatedly, she realized it would hit Samara as well, and vainly tried to skew the direction as it launched. The end result was that Thane easily jumped over it as well and moved to engage Endo.

Shepard realized Rina was missing and grinned. Of course she had taken the first opportunity to cloak. Shepard had the luxury of time to look for Rina as Thane and Endo traded blows. She spotted the telltale shimmer sneaking up behind Thane as he concentrated on Endo, who was luring Thane into position to be taken out by Rina. Endo was good; he was holding up better than Shepard but not by much, and it wasn't long before Thane swept the soldier's feet out from under him in a hard takedown.

Just as Thane was making his final attack on Endo, Rina surged forward, but Thane knew she was there. He spun in place, smooth as silk, and turned her momentum against her to send her flying through the air and into Jack, sending them both tumbling ungracefully to the ground.

The entire fight had taken less than thirty seconds, and Thane was barely breathing hard.

Shepard grinned at the sight of everyone sprawled on the floor. "Well, I don't feel quite so embarrassed anymore."

Endo picked himself up and held out his hand to Thane. "Damn, man, that was some crazy shit. Never seen anyone move like that. Where do I sign up?" he asked Shepard.

She shrugged. "Not exactly as easy as the gene mods. Quite a bit more painful, actually. Probably illegal in seven systems, too."

He just grinned back. "For moves like that, I'd suffer quite a bit. Glad you're on our side, man."

Shepard watched as Samara offered some quiet comments to Jack, who didn't seem particularly pleased to hear whatever it was the asari was saying. She turned her attention back to the others as Endo asked Thane to go one on one with him. Rina gestured for Shepard to square off against her. It might not have been as much of a workout for the infiltrator, but Shepard appreciated that Rina didn't go all out. She was recovering, yes, but still needed time to get back to form.

When she was dripping with sweat, she finally bowed out and Rina went to work with Endo and Thane. After everyone was ready to call it a day, Shepard made plans to meet Endo and Rina for drinks later that night, and of course Jack had to invite herself and Samara along.

Even later, when she and Thane were alone in their bed, she pressed close against him, reveling in the solid weight of his body against hers. He lay on his back with one arm holding her as he stared up at the ceiling. She disliked disturbing him while he was so obviously deep in thought, but something wasn't letting him rest easy tonight. "What's bothering you, Thane?"

He turned to her and pressed a light kiss to her forehead. "Three days is not enough time for you to completely recover, siha."

Three more days. The date set by the War Council when they would take the fight to the Reapers. Three more days until it would all be settled, one way or another. Not four. Not even close to the seven more that Chakwas had told her to expect for full recovery. She gave him a smile that she suspected wasn't nearly as cheerful as she intended. "Three days is more than two. And with a million civilians dying each day on each home world, it's not exactly fair to ask the fleet to wait until I have a clean bill of health." He looked unmoved. "Besides, it's not like the last time we stormed the Collector's Base. This time we'll have a fleet and hundreds of special forces. There's safety in numbers."

He pulled her closer to him. The rumble that underlay his words sounded rough and angry. "I swore I would protect you for as long as I am at your side."

"I could ask for no better protector," she whispered as she leaned in to kiss him.

He answered with a hungry growl and rolled so that she was on top of him. One hand tangled in her hair and trapped her lips against his in a fierce and passionate kiss. His other hand slid down to the curve of her buttocks and pressed her tight against him, letting her feel his desire for her. "I promised you my arm long ago. Now I will fight with you and defend you with everything I am, heart and soul, in this fight and in every day after that, siha."

Their bodies were pressed tightly together, her legs wrapped around his hips, and her hands cradling his face. They were so close that she could feel the air he exhaled fan across her lips. One body, one breath, one heart, one soul. Nothing would ever again separate them. She closed her eyes and rocked her hips against his. So softly that he felt the words more than heard them, she whispered, "Love me, Thane."

He did.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to my lovely beta, Orchidellia, for her comments and feedback and company.


	55. We Are Soldiers, Stand or Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final battle.

"All ships, prepare for jump."

Shepard felt the  _Normandy's_ engines engage at Admiral Valerianus' command as Joker fell into his assigned position in the fleet. She took a deep breath to steady herself. This was it. The culmination of every action she'd taken for the past two years. All the ups and downs, twists and turns, all the sacrifices and pain - all of it built to this moment. They had their weapon. They had a fleet. They were finally taking the war to the Reapers!

In her mind, she saw the fleet line up at the relay.  _Tempus_ was in the lead. The big dreadnought would go first and clear the space in the other side of the Omega 4 relay, while the frigates, cruisers and rachni fighters would follow behind. The SSV  _Shasta_ , an Alliance dreadnought, brought up the rear and would provide additional firepower.

It had been a delicate balancing act, trying to estimate the force waiting for them inside the Collector's Base as well as any Reapers and other defenses. Almost all the ships except the rachni fighters had AIs installed in them. There was even a small contingent of geth fighters. Fortunately, at least in Shepard's mind, the War Council was much more open to the idea of allying with the geth than the Citadel's Galactic Council, but then, given the losses that the combined fleet and planetary forces had been suffering, any help was welcome at this point.

The geth and AIs faced an extra risk: the weapon code would destroy any sentient synthetic life if they were connected to the extranet when it was transmitted. Each of them would have to go offline before the transmission to save themselves, but in doing so, they would leave themselves and their crew vulnerable to attack. Despite the risk, the geth and AIs insisted on being part of the attack force.

Shepard stared down at the map display. Thane stepped closer to her and rested his hand on her shoulder. "We are as prepared as we can be."

She turned her head to give him a strained smile. "I know, Thane, but this one's for all the marbles. It's not any regular mission."

He shook his head. "It is the same. We fight to survive and to destroy our enemies. It is no different from any other mission you have undertaken in the past. The gods saved us both for a reason, siha. I have no doubt that we will be victorious," he said calmly.

She closed her eyes and drew strength from his serenity. Thane had a point. They'd planned for every contingency and prepared for everything that could possibly go right as well as wrong. They were ready, and within the next few hours the Reapers would die. She refused to consider any other option. Too many things had conspired to put them in the perfect place at this point in time. It did indeed feel like the handiwork of the gods.

She turned to face her assassin, and pulled him in for a sudden fierce kiss. "You're right, Thane. Let's go kill some Reapers!" One way or another, everything would be settled today. With a strangely light heart, she grabbed her helmet off the railing and headed for the lift and the hangar bay with Thane close behind.

In the darkness of space, the Omega 4 relay lit up and the  _Tempus_ disappeared. One after the other, the rest of the ships flashed through the relay.

As soon as she was through, the  _Tempus_ was firing all weapons while a swarm of rachni fighters circled her to protect against the ancient weapons that activated when the relay did. The  _Tempus'_ reinforced shielding flickered and flared in the hard light of the galactic core as it repulsed multiple attacks, but the small weapons hiding in the debris field were nothing more than a nuisance for the dreadnought. The agile rachni ships darted in and out of the debris with seemingly preternatural agility as they hunted down the enemy, making high gee turns that would quash most organic pilots into jelly.

The corridor between the relay and the Collector's Base was much wider than it had been on Shepard's first trip through, but the Illusive Man's forces had laced it with heavy mines. The  _Tempus'_ forward accelerators fired over and over, but even so, the shielding flared and the huge ship shuddered when one of the mines slipped through and made contact.

Instead of the  _Normandy's_ first madcap race through the debris field, this trip was deliberately slow to protect the troop carriers. The unfortunate consequence of this approach was that it gave the enemy's forces time to bear down on the fleet.

Edging out of the shadow of the Collector's Base came the unmistakable silhouette of a Reaper capital class ship. The  _Tempus_ never deviated from its course, acting as the shield for the rest of the fleet. At the same time, one of the rachni ships started making micro FTL jumps toward the Reaper.

"Strike Team Arrow engaging," came Rina's voice over the command channel.

The Reaper fired, but the distance attenuated the energy beam attack enough that it was little more than a warning shot. As they closed the distance, the Reaper's weapon would be a serious problem for the  _Tempus_ and lethal to the other ships.

Finally the barrage of attacks from the hidden weapons and mines lessened, and Admiral Valarianus gave the command for Phase Two. The  _Normandy_ and other frigates peeled off from the fleet as the carriers released their fighters. Joker kinked the  _Normandy's_ flight path hard enough that everyone on board had to brace against the gravity fluctuations, but out past the debris field was unforgiving empty space with nowhere to hide.

The atmosphere in the hangar was tense and silent. Even Jack had nothing to say as they waited to see if Joker could deliver them to the Collector's Base without getting shot down. "Brace for impact, people," came Joker's terse warning. "We're coming in hard."

Shepard reflexively grabbed onto a support strut, but in spite of Joker's warning, the ship landed fairly sedately. As she led her forces out the hangar bay and toward the entrance, she forcibly pushed back memories of their last time here. Joker had landed them as close as he could to the central chamber while the other frigates were landing teams up and down the length of the base to draw off and splinter the Illusive Man's internal forces. Shepard's team was augmented by Aralakh Company, krogans hand-picked by Wrex to provide support.

As they headed inside, Shepard turned and saw the  _Normandy_ lift off again. With a Reaper nearby, staying in one place would be suicide for a ship. By the time this was done, either the Reapers would be dead and they could have a safe pickup, or the attack would have failed and it wouldn't matter. Just like the last time, there was no place for half-measures on this mission.

As soon as they entered the base, they were assaulted by a gruesome force of living Reaperized troops intermixed with human husks and other Reaper monstrosities as they fought through the Gigeresque hallways. Just as on Horizon, these troops, both living and dead, displayed a disturbing tendency to act as a coherent unit. Unlike Horizon, everyone opposing them had weapons, and that combination of armed distributed intelligence was wreaking havoc on every allied force attacking inside the base.

For a change, she was near the back of the group to provide protection for Retribution. Grunt was leading the krogan charge ahead of them. Next to her, Thane was every bit the defender he had vowed, and the few enemies who made it past the melee on the sides were dead before they got close to her.

It was slow, brutal, and bloody, and threatened to come to a standstill on more than one occasion. Then a contingent of geth fighters, complete with Primes and an armature caught up with them. Shepard watched in savage glee as the armature decimated the center of their enemy and they started pushing forward in earnest.

All around them, the floor was littered with the dead and dying. Powerful biotics warped and pulled at the fabric of space and gravity. With the maelstrom of destruction raging all around, it was impossible to keep tabs on every possible opponent. At one point, she took a sniper shot to her helmet, knocking her backward to the floor and causing her tech shielding to blast out and take down those closest to her as well. She climbed awkwardly to her feet with her ears still ringing just in time to see Garrus line up a shot and take out the sniper with extreme prejudice.

The krogans formed a wall in front of the rest that the Cerberus troops and husks smashed themselves against. Even with the geth coming to provide support, the ground they gained was dearly bought, but finally they prevailed over the enemy troops in front of them and gained the relative safety and rest of a large chamber.

As Jacob and some of the geth jury rigged a temporary barrier to keep them from being attacked from behind, Shepard turned to survey her troops. Bloody, battered. Some looked like they could barely keep walking, but aside from offering medi gel and other medicines, there wasn't anything she could do for them.

Retribution came up beside her. "Admiral, I can detect transmission frequencies from an area approximately five hundred meters ahead. There is a high likelihood that there will be a communication terminal there that I can access."

After a quick consultation with Garrus, James, and Grunt, they decided to leave a small force behind to protect and evacuate the wounded, while the rest would push ahead. This time, Shepard took point with Retribution just behind to navigate the way. Thane stayed a silent ghost at her side.

The Illusive Man's voice sounded from all around them. "Did you really expect to accomplish anything aside from your own death by coming here, Shepard?" She gripped her gun tighter as she moved and refused to respond. He would get her answer in the form of a bullet soon enough. His sly laugh enveloped them. "You're on a fool's mission, Shepard. You don't have enough firepower to destroy this base, and there's no way you'll survive long enough to either reach your target or escape."

On the heels of his words, the hallway shook and the wall suddenly ripped open, exposing them to the huge central chamber they had fought through last time. Black ichor dripped from the severed tubes hanging overhead. The overhead lighting wavered, and Shepard had the sense of something immense moving past the gaping hole in the wall just before the hole abruptly widened again. Suddenly the odd shapes coalesced into meaning. It was a huge metallic hand, and it ripped away yet another section of wall.

She was struck motionless for a crucial second, staring at her worst nightmare come to life: the human Reaper fetus reborn. Deep in her heart, she had suspected. Why else would the Reapers be collecting so many humans in their processing ships? The superstructure had been rebuilt and expanded so the torso no longer hung macabrely unfinished, and now there was significantly more organo-metallic sheathing covering its grotesque skull and torso, but the eyes were exactly like the ones that haunted her dreams. It was no longer tethered in place by vulnerable feeding tubes, meaning it could move freely through the chamber.

Its beam weapon flickered preparatory to firing, and Shepard was shocked out of her fugue state. "Move!" she yelled at the top of her lungs and shoved Retribution forward as hard as she could. They had only made a few steps before the weapon fired and the tunnel exploded. The force threw her to the ground on top of Retribution. Ahead of her, Thane and Legion barely kept their feet. She climbed upright and glanced back at everyone else, her eyes widening in horror. Jack and Samara had been just behind her, but that small distance had been fatal, and now the floor was crumbling underneath them. "Jack!" she yelled as the slight human windmilled her arms in a futile attempt to pull herself forward to solid ground. Behind her, Samara was already falling to the depths when a blast of energy thundered up as the asari channeled every bit of biotic power into one last push to throw Jack forward to safety.

Jack was thrown forward and landed almost at Shepard's feet. She bent down and hauled Jack to her feet and then forcibly dragged her back from the edge and the dangerous exposure to the human Reaper.

Jack screamed in agony and fought against Shepard's hold to try and run back. Shepard shook the smaller woman so hard her head jerked violently. "She's gone!" Shepard said harshly, fighting back against her own grief that threatened to close her throat. "Don't make her sacrifice in vain." She pulled Jack forward again to a bend in the corridor and what she hoped was momentary safety against the human Reaper.

Jack's face was contorted in rage and grief with tears streaming down her cheeks. "You don't understand, Shepard. She's the only one who really cared about me. Me as a person, not as a damn weapon!"

Shepard shoved Jack up against the wall. "I'm sorry, Jack, I am! For now, we have to move." She turned Jack over to Thane as she stepped back to see what remained of her squad. She sighed with relief when she saw Garrus' bright blue armor on the far side of the gaping hole in the hall. "Shepard, we're going to look for another way around," he said over the comm.

The Illusive Man's voice interrupted them, and she waved Garrus to start moving. "You have more lives than a cat, Shepard. Too bad the ships outside can't say the same thing. Five of them have been destroyed already. Two of them still had all their troops on board. Oh, and if you think I have any sentimentality regarding EDI, you're mistaken."

Shepard did her best to ignore him as she signaled Thane to take point and move out. Jack brought up the rear, tears still falling from her eyes, but her attitude promising murder to any who crossed her.

Resistance was light as they moved forward. Shepard felt a prickle of uneasiness crawl across her shoulders, and when she glanced at Thane, he looked similarly wary.

The Illusive Man laughed sadistically. "Looks like your pilot is as good as he claims. Too bad the  _Britain's_  pilot wasn't."

"I'm going to kill him!" Jack raged. "I'm going to rip him apart and smash him into a bloody pulp."

"Get in line, Jack," Shepard said without looking back as Thane checked around the bend and motioned them to move forward.

Retribution broke in. "Admiral, we are near the communication terminal. It is approximately ten meters above us and twenty meters ahead."

Like the answer to their prayers, a winding ramp appeared around the next bend. Still not trusting divine intervention, Shepard cautiously followed Thane up the incline with the two synthetics close behind her. No one was attacking them, and it was starting to worry her. There was no way the Illusive Man would let her stroll unhindered into his territory, which only meant there had to be something nasty waiting for them.

The ramp terminated in a small antechamber just outside a set of closed doors. "Legion, get these open," she ordered as she turned to watch the ramp.

The Illusive Man's voice filled the hallway, and she could hear his obvious gloating. "Can you hear that, Shepard? That's the sound of the trap closing around you. You'll never get past those doors, and now my forces are coming to annihilate you. I don't know what you thought you could accomplish, but it's too late. I control the Reapers. Soon I'll take control of the Citadel. I've ordered Reapers to Omega, and in another hour, it will be nothing more than scattered chunks of rock and bodies in the asteroids. I'll hammer Palaven and Thessia until they have no choice but to surrender."

"You know the turians will never surrender," she yelled into the air.

"Then they'll go extinct. I really don't care," he countered.

Thane gestured to Shepard that troops were coming. She felt a wave of ice cold clarity descend on her in preparation for close combat. Without glancing back, she yelled at Legion, "We need that door open!"

"A moment, Shepard-Admiral."

"We don't have a moment!"

Thane lifted his SMG to his shoulder in preparation for the onslaught. Jack stood next to her on the other side, biotic energy snapping the air around her. "They'll die," she promised with a snarl.

A rocket launcher screamed through the air and impacted the wall near Retribution, exploding and knocking the synthetic's Prime platform to the ground. "Shit," Shepard muttered as she glanced backward. The hackles on the back of her neck rose when he didn't make any movements to climb back to his feet. "Retribution? Legion, what happened?"

Legion looked up from the door panel he was hacking. "It appears the explosion compromised his autonomic subroutines."

"The fuck does that mean, Legion?" she asked angrily.

"If the unit cannot self-repair, it will not be able to transmit the weapon," Legion said matter-of-factly.

"God damn it!" she yelled as she spun and armed and tossed a grenade down the ramp. Three seconds later, there was a muffled boom and whump, but she didn't know if it had any effect on their enemies. She chided herself for wasting ammo and pulled her Locust around to aim down the ramp.

The first wave of enemy troops showed around the bend in the ramp, and Jack threw a shockwave so powerful that it knocked them up into the ceiling and then dropped them on the fighters behind them. Thane and Shepard took out the ones who made it over the fallen. Between the three of them, they shot down every enemy that appeared, making a wall of yellow and black. But no matter how good they were, they were trapped unless Legion could open the doors.

Shepard dropped a heat sink and slotted another one in seamlessly as Thane and Jack mowed down the advancing troops. They were thicker now, coming around the bend and pushing over the fallen bodies of their dead with no obvious concern. She grabbed another incendiary grenade from her belt and tossed it around the corner. It only slowed them for a moment, and then they pushed forward in even greater numbers. Shepard was snarling at them as her Locust fired non-stop. Beside her, Jack waited until she and Thane needed to reload before smashing the enemy troops flat. Another rocket-propelled grenade slammed into the wall behind them and staggered them all forward. More and more enemy troops appeared, and Shepard heard the distinctive whine of a Praetorian coming closer.

Just as Shepard was counting the grenades and heat sinks left to her, the doors behind them slid open. "Apologies for taking so long, Shepard-Admiral. The security has been enhanced since we were last here."

Shepard had the impression of a long hallway, dimly lit in orange tones. Legion grabbed Retribution's platform and pulled it into the hallway. Thane's gun chattered out a burst as a group of husks appeared on the ramp below them. The rest of them fell back, and Shepard tossed another grenade to cover them as Legion closed and locked the door.

"I've had years to prepare, Shepard," the Illusive Man boasted. "Do you really think that just because you made it past one obstacle that you'll actually succeed? Don Quixote had better odds than you." He laughed insolently. "It's futile, Shepard. You're going to die. Again. And this time no one's going to bring you back."

She growled in irritation as she looked around for a speaker or anything she could shoot to get him to shut up. "Legion, tell me he can be fixed," she said as she stared worriedly at the motionless custom Prime.

"Unknown, Shepard-Admiral." Legion knelt down and started running diagnostics. While he was busy with that, Shepard gestured for Thane to join her as she started exploring. Jack slumped by the doors, lost in grief.

The hallway was arched overhead and cast in a dim orange light. Sticking out of the curving walls at irregular intervals were numerous black crystalline structures as big as her head. As they walked, she kept trying to contact someone, anyone, but the comm channels only returned a buzz of static. She forced herself not to worry about it. The most likely cause was that the Illusive Man was broadcasting some sort of jamming signal. Even if everyone else was dead, it still didn't change what she had to do.

"Shepard, here." There was a note of urgency in the assassin's normally calm voice that made her put aside her worries and jog to catch up. Rounding the corner, she saw a cylindrical tower approximately a meter wide that pulsed with orange lights. On the floor was a pile of bones and armor from some long-dead Collector. They could have been two years old or a thousand years old. Why had they been left here? She didn't have time to ponder Collector funerary rites, though. Thane held up his omni tool as he said, "It has the same frequency Retribution was searching for. I think this is it."

The Illusive Man spoke up again. "Haven't you figured it out yet? I'm a god, Shepard. Bow down and worship me, for I am so far beyond your comprehension that the only way you can relate to me is as your god. I will live forever. I will be the one to control the fate of the galaxy. I will put humanity at the top, and they will do my bidding. How can they not, when I control the Reapers."

"I really, really hate him," she muttered as they headed back. She felt a jolt of hope when she saw Retribution upright, but it immediately died when he didn't move or acknowledge her return. "Legion?"

"We have restored partial functionality to the unit, Shepard-Admiral."

"Meaning?"

"Preliminary diagnostics indicate that the memory cores are undamaged. We can upload the weapon."

She wanted to yell for joy, but restrained herself to a tight smile. "We found the comm terminal. Just up ahead."

As they reached the terminal, Legion opened a globular hologram between himself and Retribution. "With the VI's autonomic subroutines damaged, the only way to transmit the weapon is through me."

Her brows knit together in confusion for a moment. "Legion, if you don't go off-line..."

"Yes, Shepard-Admiral. Connecting." The geth sounded unconcerned that he was in effect committing suicide by transmitting the weapon code through himself. "Five percent."

Before Shepard could say anything, there was an explosion of biotic energy further down the hall accompanied by an incoherent scream of rage from Jack.

The Illusive Man's voice rolled down the hallway. "That was a pointless display of aggression, Jack, but I suppose it should have been expected given your upbringing. I was only keeping that out of sentimentality. Now, without it, I find myself free of bodily restrictions I never even knew existed. I suppose I could thank you, but why?"

Shepard slid to a halt at the entrance to a small room just behind Jack. The biotic was still surrounded by a shimmering field of barely tamed dark energy and breathing heavily. Looking past her, she saw the Illusive Man lying on the floor. His face was heavily marred by the same cybernetic lines she had seen on Horizon. He was unmistakably dead, his body unnaturally twisted by Jack's attack.

Shepard backed up and looked uneasily up and down the corridor. The Illusive Man continued. "I have a new body now. One suited for a god. I will be immortal, inconceivably powerful, beyond your comprehension. I can see exactly how the future will play out. I've already determined your every possible move and assigned a countermove. It's a chess match you have no chance of winning. But I've let you go long enough, Shepard. It's time to stop this little game of yours."

The sound of ripping metal shrieked and rebounded around the narrow space as a huge portion of the hallway opposite them was suddenly torn away. As light came pouring through, Shepard saw an immense hand dropping sections of the hallway into the depths below and coming back to rip open more of the wall. Jack screamed again and blasted the hand to no effect. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

The Illusive Man was the one who answered her. "I find I no longer care about anything so petty as amusement, Jack. There is only purpose. My glorious purpose, and you will serve me in my new world."

"Like hell I will!" she shot back.

"Then you will die." Enough of the wall had been ripped away that they were exposed to the reborn human Reaper, and Shepard was sure she could see the human malevolence of the Illusive Man staring back at her through the mismatched eyes.

"We put you down once, you son of a bitch," Shepard shouted. "We'll do it again. Thane, Jack, spread out. Aim for the eyes and weapon points." The rest of the armature might have been covered with metallic skin, but he couldn't armor the weak points. She pulled the Cain from her back and set it spinning up, darting to the side as its energy weapon fired on them. The hallway behind them exploded in a puff of dust that momentarily obscured everything, but as soon as it cleared, she fired and scored a direct hit. Thane had slipped out through the opening and found a protected ledge that let him line up his sniper rifle.

"What are you doing?" For the first time, she could detect a note of concern in the Illusive Man's artificial voice. Hard on the heels of his question, the floor rocked alarmingly under their feet as muffled booms rolled through the cavernous opening. "I command you to stop."

"Forty percent," Legion announced. Shepard grimaced. It was taking too long, and yet there was nothing she could do to speed it up. She had to protect the geth and the communication terminal. She waited impatiently for the Cain to power up again. Trying to time the abomination's energy blasts, she stepped out and fired again. Unfortunately, the Illusive Man had improved the recharge time on his abomination's weapon, and it fired again before the Cain finished discharging. The blast threw her back against the wall, and she dropped stunned onto the ground. She pushed herself up on her hands and knees just in time to see the huge hand swipe at the hallway again and a flash of green and black as Thane scrambled away.

It took her precious seconds to find and dig her Cain out from under the rubble in the hallway. Thane had already reset in a new location and was sniping away at the enemy. Jack was screaming as she threw focused waves of biotic energy, but they were too far away for her to have much effect. Shepard looked up just in time to see Jack hurtle over the lip of the wrecked hallway and down the steeply sloped wall to get closer to the monstrosity that towered above them.

"Sixty percent." She barely registered Legion's announcement as she darted forward to the opening and screamed after the biotic. "Jack! Get back here!" It was useless. Even if the biotic could have heard her, there was no way she was turning back. "Thane, cover her!"

She unconsciously chewed the inside of her cheek as she split her attention between Jack running full tilt at the human Reaper and her weapon charge. Three Cerberus troops charged at Jack as she approached the chamber floor. Jack swatted them over the edge of the platform and into the depths as if disposing of a mosquito.

 _Come on, come on,_ she urged her Cain. As soon as the charge was full, she blasted the superstructure in the face and had the grim satisfaction of seeing the eyes dim as it drew power to compensate for the damage. That satisfaction abruptly disappeared as she threw herself hard to the side to avoid another slap by the Reaper's hand. She was still caught by the tip and slammed up against the communication terminal. Next to her, Legion still held the hologram between his hands. He glanced at her. "Ninety percent. Shepard, do you think I have a soul?"

Stunned by the blow as much as the question, she stared at Legion. "What?"

"What do you think will happen to me when the upload is complete?" he asked.

Being in the middle of a horribly lop-sided firefight wasn't helping her philosophical clarity. For a second, she wished Thane were here. Surely he would have a ready answer, but Legion only had a few more seconds left in this life, and synthetic though he might be, he was owed an answer. "I wish I knew for sure, Legion. But I know that you're just like me and Thane and Jack and every other organic. You're just as complex and just as original. Whatever happens to us, I think it must happen to you, too."

"I like the idea of heaven, Shepard. Ninety five percent."

She smiled at him, although it was twisted with sadness. "Save me a seat, would you? I'll miss you, Legion."

He turned to look at her fully. "Transmission complete. Good-bye, Shepard." His ocular sensor dimmed and his platform sagged to the ground, still and silent.

The base rocked again, this time more violently. Both the lights and artificial gravity dimmed for a few seconds before returning to normal. "I'm ordering you to stop firing!" The Illusive Man sounded borderline frantic now, and he had stopped attacking them. Another distant blast sounded, and the floor visibly rippled underneath her. She suddenly realized the Illusive Man wasn't talking to them; he was trying to order the Reapers to stop firing on the Collector's Base. They must have comprehended what was happening and were trying a last ditch effort to stop the transmission, willing to sacrifice their millennia-old base in order to preserve their miserable existence.

"Thane!" she yelled as she staggered to her feet.

"Here, Shepard!" came his gravelly voice as he jumped lightly over the debris between them. "We need to get out of here."

"We need to find Jack!" Behind them, the communication cylinder was flashing rapidly and changing from orange to red. She ran to the jagged edge of the open hallway and stared out in amazement at the human Reaper. Lightning and sparks were coruscating along its superstructure, and its movements were jerky and uncoordinated. It was hard to tear her eyes away from it and look for Jack. "Do you see her?"

A quick shake of his head confirmed her fears. Jack was lost amidst the rubble and enemy troops below them. Another blast shook the station, this time strong enough to nearly pitch Shepard over the edge. Only Thane's lightning fast grab on her belt kept her beside him. He forcibly hauled her back from the jagged opening. "Now, Shepard!" he yelled as he pulled her down the corridor.

She looked back one last time and muttered a curse as she turned to follow Thane. There were no more major impacts on the base, but the floor continued to rumble and shift underfoot, causing them to occasionally careen off the walls as they ran down the hallway. Shepard repeatedly tried calling on her communicator for Garrus, Joker, or anyone in the fleet, but it stayed silent.

They came to a cross tunnel, and Thane hesitated slightly before turning right. Having no better information, she followed him and prayed they could find an egress from the station before it came apart around them. They pounded down the tunnels without meeting any resistance and following Thane's intuition about the way out.

Shepard was starting to get a stitch in her side and was falling behind Thane. The long fight had worn down her already-reduced constitution. At the next turn, Thane had to wait for her to catch up. She caught his concerned look, but neither of them said anything. The base lurched and a meter wide gap cracked the floor in front of them. They both cleared it, but Shepard nearly fell on landing. Thane steadied her with a hand under her elbow and then they were off again.

Thane's intuition was sound, and they ran out into a much larger tunnel similar to the one they had entered only a couple hours ago. There were Cerberus troops sprawled on the ground, and as they ran past, Shepard noted that they didn't have any bullet wounds. It reminded her of Horizon. Her spirits rose at this small indication that they might have been successful.

The way out led up a steep ramp, and Shepard was gasping as she ran upward. A large crack snapped through the air as part of the ceiling fell down behind them. "Faster, Shepard!" Thane urged.

She wanted to snap at him but needed all her air for running. At odds with his words, he slowed his steps to match hers. When they reached the top of the ramp, she had to stop to catch her breath, but Thane only let her have five seconds before he pushed her forward again. "We're getting close," he told her. Hard on his words, her communicator crackled to life again with confused shouting and orders. "Joker? Are you there?" she gasped out

Her pilot's response was both instant and filled with shock. "Shepard! That you? Where are you?"

Trying to explain that she didn't know would take too many words that she didn't have breath for. She settled for something shorter. "Status!"

"Uh...We're picking up Garrus and the rest. The Reapers are firing on the station, Shepard. You need to get out of there!"

"Get the...AIs...offline, Joker. Now!" Another ramp stretched upward in front of them and she winced internally even as Thane started pulling her forward.

Boudicca's voice interrupted. "We can't, Shepard. It would be too dangerous for the ships and our crews."

A hundred retorts went through her mind that she couldn't spare the air to say. "Now," she ordered.

A hellish synthetic screech overwhelmed the comms, loud enough that it made Shepard stagger as her hand came up automatically to smack her helmet. The sound only got louder and her frantic stabs to mute the volume didn't work. She had to stop and wrench her helmet off. Next to her, Thane had ripped his own comm off and was glaring at it.

Shepard yelled at her helmet, trying to cut through the interference. "Joker! Boudicca!"

She barely caught Joker's tinny voice over the high-pitched noise. "Something's happening!"

Without urging this time, they both turned and took off again. The high pitched electronic screech was sounding through the corridors now and making her wince in pain as she ran. The station was shaking again, and pieces of the ceiling and walls were tumbling to the floors and rolling downhill, necessitating some fancy footwork to stay upright as they ran.

Thane pointed and her next wheezing gasp held a note of definite relief. Just up ahead was an exit to the station, a two meter wide opening onto one of the outer spines. With a renewed burst of energy, she pounded up the last few meters, but as they reached the opening, a massive explosion blew them backward.

Her head was ringing, and the world was spinning as she landed flat on her back. Looking up, her heart sank when she saw the spine had been sheared off, probably by a Reaper blast, and now it was shoved half up against the entrance. There was no way a ship as large as the Normandy could maneuver in to pick them up. Given the way the station was coming apart around them, it would be impossible for them to backtrack and find another exit in time.

She tried her comm again, shouting to hopefully be heard over the interfering signal. "Joker? Boudicca? What's going on?" The only answer was the signal, and she looked at Thane helplessly. Question upon question chased around her mind. Had the weapon worked? Did it get through the relay network? What happened to the AIs? Could they get off the station before it self-destructed around them? There was no way their conventional forces could defeat the Reapers, and everyone knew it. They had bet everything on Retribution and the Collector's Base. It had to have worked, she told herself. Anything else was unthinkable.

Thane wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close to him. One hand rose to stroke her hair. One way or another, it was over, and with that sudden realization, she sagged into him. Either it had worked and everyone was saved, or it hadn't, and the rest of the galaxy was doomed. Her fight was over now. For the first time since her extraordinary awakening in the Cerberus lab, the crushing pressure of saving humanity was gone. Finally, she could simply let go, knowing that she had done everything in her power to save the galaxy. If this was the end, she could go with a clear conscience. Her only regret was that she wouldn't have that lifetime with Thane, but they had already beaten the odds many times over. These final moments would have to be enough.

"Thane," she whispered as she pulled back to look at him. She remembered meeting him so long ago on Nos Astra, thinking how inscrutable he looked with his handsome but alien features. Now she could read him as easily as her own mind.

He smiled tenderly as he ran his fingers through her hair and drew her in for a soft kiss. The same thoughts had occurred to him. At least they had each other, here at the end of everything.

It was only a kiss, and yet it contained every heightened emotion playing through them. It conveyed their love for each other, exultation at surviving through so much until this moment mixed with agony that this moment was all they had remaining. It was by turns soft and urgent, leaving them both breathless and clinging to each other.

She cupped the back of his head, careful with her gauntlets still on, and smiled at him. "This time, I'm expecting to see you on the other side."

Gently, he brushed a tear away from her eye. "We will face the ocean together, siha. I promise, I will not leave your side. Not even in death."

"You'd better not," she warned him only half-playfully.

He ignored her teasing and stroked her cheek. "You were successful, siha. You can rest easily. Arashu will not abandon you."

She breathed out slowly and turned her head to kiss his palm. "I'm ready to rest, Thane." A small shower of pebbles and dust rained down and behind them the floor split and dropped. They ignored it as their lips met again. Thane crushed her against him in spite of her armor, and she was no gentler. The hallway rocked again, and then a different whine penetrated the general chaos.

Breaking their kiss, Shepard stared in astonishment as a spiky rachni vessel deftly slid up next to the broken spine and turned to expose a door that irised open. A human wearing N7 armor stood in the doorway and gestured frantically at them. "What the fuck do you think this is?" Rina yelled at them. "A fucking Hollywood movie? Get your asses in here!"

Neither of them needed any further encouragement and sprinted for the miraculous promise of safety. Thane's feet had barely cleared the door before the pilot accelerated downward so rapidly that they were pressed against the ceiling. Rachni ships didn't have artificial gravity, and Shepard and Thane had to fumble for handholds as the ship jerked and accelerated.

"Rina?" Shepard's heart was in her throat, hoping that the other soldier had good news and they weren't flying back to a losing war.

Rina twisted her helmet off, and her grin was the only answer Shepard needed. She screamed in triumph and turned to embrace Thane again, sending them both spinning into the cabin.

"You did it!" Rina shouted and the rest of her strike team was just as noisily celebrating. "As soon as that signal cut off, the fuckers stopped firing and just started drifting."

"The relay?" Shepard asked urgently as Thane anchored them both back to the wall.

Rina shook her head, but was still pumped with excitement. "It lit up, even though no ships passed through. We won't know until we go back, but...God, Shepard, it had to have worked!"

"What about the ships?"

"Comms are totally hosed up," Rina told her. "That signal scrambled everything. The rachni can still make out some signal in the noise. It's how our pilot found you, but all the other ships have been silent."

Even that worrisome unknown wasn't enough to dampen the sense of victory that permeated the small ship. Shepard and Rina looked at each other and nodded. "Let's go find out our fate," Shepard said.

As Rina passed the order to the pilot, Shepard and Thane embraced each other tightly as they waited to see what their future held.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter, and it's done. This chapter title comes from a song from Origa called Rise, from the OST of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, 2nd Gig. It's also a great song to listen to while reading this chapter and was in frequent rotation on my playlist while writing the whole story.
> 
> Thanks to my beta reader, Orchidellia, for all her help in everything!


	56. Time Enough

It was a sunny day on Kahje, and they were all taking advantage of the weather and visiting the beach. They weren't alone. Sunny days on Kahje were rare enough that they were practically national holidays, and everyone that could possibly manage it came out to play.

Shepard had slathered herself in sunblock and had let Thane coax her out into the breakers. She couldn't depend on his help today, though. All his attention was on the tiny toddler he was supporting and who was happily kicking and splashing, secure in the knowledge that he would never let her go. Shepard glanced back at the beach and spotted Hama and Kolyat sprawled out on a blanket, content to let the grandparents watch their active toddler as they caught a mid-day nap. Shepard refused to think of herself as a grandmother though. She was still too damned young. She preferred to think of Micheo as a sort of adopted daughter instead. One that she could pass back to her real mother when she started fussing.

Micheo laughed and gurgled happily as the water splashed over her, and Shepard watched in delight as Thane played with his granddaughter. His smile was completely relaxed as he tickled Micheo to make her laugh again. It made Shepard smile just to watch him.

"She's grown so much since we were last here," she said as she reached out to take the little girl. Micheo squealed as Shepard tossed her gently in the air and caught her just as her toes splashed in the water.

"Children do that," Thane teased her. Kolyat and Hama had kept them up to date on their daughter's growth, but pictures and vids never compared to seeing her in person. That was why they'd decided to shoehorn a vacation into Shepard's non-stop diplomatic tour. Her Alliance rank was largely ceremonial now, but she still went on Spectre missions. Nowadays, though, she worked with words instead of weapons. As the Hero of the Reaper War, her actions and statements carried a huge amount of influence all across the galaxy.

Shepard flipped her upside down so the top of her head just brushed the waves, eliciting another round of squealing giggles that made Shepard laugh. "She's fearless," she announced as she turned her over and cuddled her against her chest.

"She takes after you," Thane said as he stepped behind her and wrapped his arms around her.

"Um, no blood relation here," she said laughing.

"Souls are not tied by blood," he reminded her, one of the tenets of the old drell religion he had been teaching her. "You have been a part of Kolyat and Hama's life since long before she was born. Your spirit obviously influenced hers," he said as he tickled the little girl's cheek frills.

Shepard turned to face Thane, Micheo cradled securely between them. He read the wistful smile on her face and reached up to cup her cheek. "Rethinking EDI's offer?"

EDI had been one of the scant handful of AIs to survive the signal transmission, and that was only because Joker shunted the entire power of the core through the comm system when the signal first transmitted. It resulted in the  _Normandy_ drifting silently for two days while the crew worked around the clock to repair systems, but EDI had survived. By choice, Boudicca had stayed online to protect her ship and crew as long as she was able. Shepard hadn't cried when Admiral Valerianus had given her the news, not even when she saw the first visuals of the  _Tempus_ with the gaping holes in her side and heard the Admiral praise Boudicca for her selflessness and actions that had ensure the survival of the  _Tempus_ and most of her crew in the last few crucial moments of battle. It hadn't been until much later, when Shepard was finally able to listen to Boudicca's last message to her that she had broken down in Thane's arms.

Last year, EDI had asked her if she would be the other mother to another AI, but Shepard had turned her down, unable to think about having another daughter just then. That had been just before Micheo had been born, and holding Kolyat and Hama's tiny baby in her arms had only made her regret her inability to have children of her own. Miranda had been sympathetic, but honest. Even with all the Lazarus technology, it wasn't enough to repair the fragile human reproductive system. The only progeny she would leave behind were her adopted grandchildren and another AI, if she chose to take EDI up on her offer.

Shepard lifted Micheo up and rubbed noses with her. "Maybe," she admitted.

"Time heals all wounds."

"That's a human saying."

He smiled. "It's a universal one."

"What do you think?"

He tapped her on the nose then lifted the baby out of her arms so he could tow her through the water. "I think that decision is up to you."

The waves washed around her. In the sunlight, the water was a brilliant clear teal, and the sand shone bright white underneath. Thane and the baby were darker shades against the sparkling water. Watching them, she couldn't deny the tug in her heart. She couldn't have her own babies, but she could have another daughter. The decision came easily then. She would call EDI tonight and make arrangements to meet up with the _Normandy_ soon. Besides, it would be nice to see Joker and James again. The Alliance had promoted James to N7 on her recommendation, and he was currently commanding the  _Normandy_ as he hunted down pirate operations in the Terminus systems.

Eventually Micheo had enough of the ocean and started fussing. Once on dry land, the toddler launched herself on unsteady legs toward her parents, landing on her father and waking him with a startled oof. Next to him, Hama blinked herself awake, looking even more exhausted than Kolyat.

"You two really need to stop putting in so many hours at work," Shepard told them bluntly.

Kolyat yawned as he cradled the little girl on his lap. "We will, just as soon as we figure out a new government. Promise." To absolutely no one's surprise, the public release of Milar's classified data had collapsed the Compact and driven a deep wedge between drell and hanar. Even now, over two years later, relations were acrimonious at best. The hanar's hopes of a Council seat were as dead as the Reapers, at least for several more decades and in spite of the fact that everyone privately acknowledged that the hanar's actions were no worse than the salarians'. But the hanar had committed the cardinal sin of letting their dirty laundry get aired to the galaxy.

The drell had nowhere else to go, and the hanar couldn't force them to leave Kahje. They would have become pariahs in the galaxy for such an act. So the two sides were tentatively and slowly hammering out a new accord that gave the drell equal say in planetary politics.

As Thane had predicted, the drell closed ranks to protect those in the Compact from any repercussions. Even those who castigated the Compact agreed that the agents were victims of the system. But the drell had also unanimously agreed that they didn't want anyone with the old government or the Compact associated in any way with the new government. And much to Kolyat's disgruntlement, he had risen to prominence when he released the data and spoken out forcefully against the hanar and the Compact. So much so, that he was now one of those tasked with forming a new government. His stories of the endless meetings and committees reminded Shepard of the history vids about the creation of the old United States of America - lots of rancorous bickering behind closed doors but with a noble goal in front of them. She was pretty sure this one would end without a war. Mostly sure. She hadn't bet on it yet.

Milar appeared out of the crowd to greet them. Another of those displaced by the fall of the old government, she filled her time watching Micheo and acting as a consultant for other governments and agencies that valued her expertise. She also worked with former Compact agents to help them transition to a civilian life. Some made it; many others couldn't handle the change and left to pursue jobs as freelancers in a tumultuous galaxy hungry for their skills.

While the others chatted and caught up on news, Shepard hugged her knees to her chest and looked out over the great ocean that was the gateway to the afterlife, according to drell mythology. Seabirds called out as they swooped into the water chasing after small purple fish. On the beach, tiny birds scuttled back and forth chasing even smaller arthropods left stranded by the waves. All up and down the beach, drell and hanar relaxed as they enjoyed the beautiful weather. For this day at least, any animosity seemed to be set aside.

Time did heal all wounds, she thought. Everyone had lost people in the Reaper war and those losses would always hurt, but it wasn't as bad now. Still, she offered up a prayer to Kalahira to keep the souls of her friends safe. Samara, Jack, and Legion, whom she had seen fall on the Collector's Base. Jacob had died protecting the injured as he escorted them back to safety, but because of his bravery, over two dozen others survived. Endo and his entire team had never been heard from again after they entered the Base. Boudicca, Garrus' daughter Enelde, and every one of Joker's AI daughters had perished that day. Joker hadn't smiled for a year, although he refused to give up flying the  _Normandy_. Shepard had stepped in when the Alliance wanted to ground him.

And yet for all those who had fallen, so many more lived. Garrus was a Spectre now, having finally stepped out of his father's shadow to stand on his own. She met up with him as frequently as their schedules allowed, which wasn't nearly often enough. Wrex was forging the krogan into a reluctantly responsible body, mainly helped by the females who were slowly emerging from seclusion to take part in clan governance. And Grunt was a highly respected member of Clan Urdnot for one so young.

Most of all, she was thrilled every day by the billions of people still living, loving, squabbling, and generally doing whatever the hell they wanted. Even Kolyat's continuous griping about his daily knock-down, drag-out fights in their new government made her happy, because it meant that they were free. No Reapers to kill them all. No Illusive Man dictating the fate of the galaxy. Just billions of people making their own messy decisions and living their own complicated lives.

She wrapped her arm around Thane and leaned into him. In spite of all the problems still to be solved, she wouldn't trade this outcome for anything. Life had taken another turn, given her another chapter to write, and this time, she didn't have to live it alone. Now they both had time enough to live and love together.

"Thank you, Arashu," she whispered as Thane pulled her in for a searing kiss.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, thanks a million to my beta reader, Orchidellia, for all her help, comments, prodding, questions, and generally making things better. You rock!
> 
> Second, thanks to every single person who read, followed, and commented. You have no idea how thrilling it is to see that someone liked your story enough to follow it, and it's a joy to discuss the story with those who comment. I love you all.
> 
> Third, I finished! Holy moly! Okay, took me a bit at the end, and I discovered that endings can be hard. But I wrote the story I wanted to read, with the ending I wanted instead of the canon one we got. I hope you enjoyed it, too. So I'll always be happy and proud that I did this. Now my Shepard can go off and maybe have more adventures, but maybe she'll just relax in the desert with Thane for a while. And this gives me the impetus to keep writing. So once again, thank to everyone for the support. See you in the next story!


End file.
